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Have attention spans been declining?

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Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#241

Post by watwut »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #112

Permit me to tie a couple of personal observation on this topic. I do not think we "lost" our ability. I think we changed our thinking. I think the world has mostly accepted the "good enough" versus "perfect". As we all have heard, to become an expert, on average we need to pursue the subject for 10 thousand hours (? Malcolm Gladwell). But, we do not need to spend 20 years practicing. We can obtain "good enough" in a…

The 10000 thing was always pseudoscience anyway.

What happened in the past is that you obtained good enough with a lot more hours and effort then now. And perfection, however you define it, was even further out of reach.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#242

Post by watwut »

firebirdn99 wrote: post #203
bastardoperator wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a projector and a popcorn machine, haven't been to the movies since.

are you able to distinguish the quality from watching on a high quality TV?

I 100% can. I also do not care, cause ability to pause matters more.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#243

Post by cratermoon »

dottjt wrote: post #199

I'm surprised no one here has mentioned mindfulness (is briefly mentioned in the article). It pretty much solves this problem. But I guess that's part of the issue, is that the problem directly obfuscates the solution, so the problem remains prevalent.

There's also the problem that "mindfulness" is itself obfuscated to mean something specific about autonomy, individual power, and personal freedom. This is a problem because it assumes attention occurs within a fixed cultural and economic framework as an individual commodity that can be traded. It's very transactional.

The practice of attention beyond what the mindfulness movement has co-opted includes attention to the ethical and ontological structure underlying our experiences. It is subversive in the sense that deep attention requires questioning assumptions. That's something the purveyors of distractions would prefer to discourage.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#245

Post by ImaCake »

Eumenes wrote: post #196
kristjank wrote: post #90

I feel increasing frustration every time I see a graph with a clear upward trend being waved off as "probably just better awareness". I am even more frustrated when it's a graph tracking some mental health issue. If adult ADHD numbers have doubled, that should mean something .

ADHD numbers have doubled because people like drugs that make them productive, and the victimhood points you get for being "neurodivergent" ... aka, its all fake.

This is a fool’s opinion. Spend some time reading what people diagnosed with ADHD say about their disorder. Medication merely makes them able to keep up some of the time.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#246

Post by cubefox »

Zetice wrote: post #182
blueblimp wrote: post #97

For those who aren't aware, this blog is infamous for sloppy work. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/7iAABhWpcGeP5e6SB/it-s-proba...

[flagged]

LessWrong is obviously not a cult, the allegations are nonsense. Well established researchers post there (e.g. Paul Christiano) and some even work or worked for OpenAI or DeepMind (e.g. Richard Ngo).

It's rather that the cited source "RationalWiki" is a highly politically biased source which routinely attacks anything which is in any way associated with the rationalism community, or which engages with things that are deemed unacceptable by its far-left authors (such as intelligence research). They have in the past attacked highly respected bloggers such as Scott Aaronson and Scott Alexander.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#248

Post by ImaCake »

kristjank wrote: post #90

I feel increasing frustration every time I see a graph with a clear upward trend being waved off as "probably just better awareness". I am even more frustrated when it's a graph tracking some mental health issue. If adult ADHD numbers have doubled, that should mean something .

ADHD has only been a recognized disorder for ~40 years. Its only been accepted by the medical community for about 5 to 10 years, depending on country. Its hardly surprising that diagnosis is increasing for something that has essentially been ignored by everyone until very recently.

Keep in mind the first person diagnosed with autism died last week.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#249

Post by watwut »

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #40

I like the theory that the reason attention span has declined is because the demand for quality has hugely increased. Since there are so many blogs, films, books and videos out there, we no longer want to waste time on things that don't entertain or provide value to us. If in the past you might've given in and read or watched through boring parts because there was less options available, now people demand less B.S. a…

I dunno. I think that quality in movies and tv went down to large extend. Average script is so bad, that basically mediocre dialog gets praise. Fights and tricks are better then before, but other then that, production last years is just meh

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#250

Post by constantly »

Whew! I saw the original title about attention spans declining by 65% and was worried, but now I see the updated title and consistent with Betteridge’s Rule can be confident they have not been actually declining. Thankfully I don’t have to read the article as it seems long.
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