Have attention spans been declining? • Hacker News Board

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#351

Post by ldhough » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:39 AM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #262

nonethewiser wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is far more content than there used to be but no more hours in the day. Our filters must reject more. Attention span cannot be measured by what we don’t pay attention to. And there has always - always - been more information than anyone could process. I think it quite obviously is determined by how long we pay attention to things we chose to engage with. Clearly watching 15 second short clips instead of readi…

> reading books This rhetoric is partly why reading gets such a bad rap. So many people put "reading books" on a pedestal, and cite random educational studies on how the mere act of reading stimulates the brain and is beneficial in itself. But 90% of the books in this world are fucking boring to downright garbage and not worth reading for most people. Telling people to read "books" is as helpful as advising suburban…

I think I see your point but 10% (or heck even 1%) of books being engaging and worthwhile is still more books than anyone could realistically read in a lifetime. Good books are a fair bit more accessible than good urbanism or rural activities are to a suburban kid (speaking from experience sadly), and I don't think people extolling the values of reading are suggesting doing it completely in lieu of other productive activities like fixing a brake cable (fwiw probably an activity better assisted by YT or maybe even TikTok than books).

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#352

Post by balder1991 » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:51 AM UTC

Brusco_RF wrote: post #66

jjoonathan wrote: post #33

There is far more content than there used to be but no more hours in the day. Our filters must reject more. Yes, there are costs -- deep work & study both suffer -- but there are benefits too: informational content that can be compressed does get compressed. An introduction to a concrete skill that would at one time have been padded out to fit into an hour long movie or lecture might become a 30 minute youtube video…

I appreciate your optimism. A lot of people point out that education hasn't changed meaningfully in hundreds of years. Professors, long lectures, textbook readings, homework and exams. I am curious if this trend will be the catalyst for a new education systems to topple current status quo. You're right: the sum total of human knowledge is larger than it has ever been so to reach the boundaries of our understanding re…

If there’s one thing I internalized about learning is that consuming content and reading doesn’t mean learning. In fact, nowadays, if I want to learn something I make summaries with my own words and create pages where I connect other stuff I think are related to that concept. (discussing it with ChatGPT is also a way to practice handling the subject in a back and forth conversation)

“Compressing” content to the bare minimum to be quickly consumed in 30 seconds can be good for news or being aware something exists maybe, but it’s terrible for learning. If you’re not actively engaged in a task and struggling with it you’re not learning anything new.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#353

Post by carom » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:54 AM UTC

BirdieNZ wrote: post #298

pwpw wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Final anecdote to "prove" my point we did not lose our attention. I have taken ADHD-diagnosed boys to camp and fish. Of the twelve (ages 12-16), only one could not sit patiently and watch the line and bobber for extended period. You’re completely misrepresenting ADHD, so I don’t see how this anecdote proves your point. ADHD isn’t the inability to focus. In fact, it often comes with the ability to hyperfocus better…

> society is largely set up to favor neurotypicals at the expense of those with ADHD. As someone with diagnosed ADHD, I think this misrepresents ADHD. There's no form of society in which ADHD is an advantage; in a hunter-gatherer society, my tent would still be untidy and I'd still procrastinate fixing my spear before the hunt until the day before, and I'd still lose focus during the hunt and miss the deer walking pa…

I agree with GP. My apartment is a mess. I neglect serious notices from the government. I can't hold a job doing boring work.

However, give me a programming project I'm interested in and I can work on it 14 hours a day. I'm not sure if it would be ADHD or autism but I'm quite happy with it.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#354

Post by Terr_ » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:54 AM UTC

danybittel wrote: post #349

Terr_ wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think we changed our thinking. I think the world has mostly accepted the "good enough" versus "perfect". [...] For example, to win [a famous baguette competition] many spend a lifetime perfecting their craft. Hasn't it always been that way, though? Decades or centuries ago we've been doing things (e.g. breadmaking) with fewer resources and worse tools and tighter margins, so "good enough" was probably even more i…

Are you making your bed everyday? I think we used to strive more for perfection. Changing sheets, ironing, folding clothes.. But also in trade, just look at all the ornaments.. attention to details, caring for tools / materials. When was the last time you got a suit made? At some point we compromised and slapped a shiny finish on it. I blame advertising.

Why are you so certain it must be an personality change from unclear causes, when a bunch of huge and proximate economic factors haven't even begun to get ruled-out?

> Are you making your bed everyday?

Is your bed still made out of hay/down, or is it made out of something far easier to maintain and keep clear of pests without the same level of fuss?

> Changing sheets, ironing, folding clothes.

Do you still invest the same X hours of wages into buying a shirt that someone would have spent back in 1723? (Hint: No.) Why would you ever expect the same degree of maintenance "perfection" when it doesn't represent the same kind of up-front investment?

Do you try to impress people by wearing powdered wigs like a proper and hygienic individual, or do you sometimes Just Not Shower Today because we have nowhere near the same kinds of problems with head-lice and body-odor?

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#355

Post by prawn » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 4:56 AM UTC

makeitdouble wrote: post #327

ethanbond wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should definitely read whatever interests them so when they want to acquire useful knowledge (like what to do when the obvious brake cable fix doesn’t work), they have access to tons and tons of written material on that topic. It’s odd how you’re acting like you’re making an argument against the general imperative to read books, but your examples are people being requested to read specific books which may or may…

> like what to do when the obvious brake cable fix doesn’t work The interesting thing: those useful information probably aren't seen as "books" even when they're in written form. The obvious example is the repair manual in PDF on the brake maker's site. Or the blog explaining how they dealt with their vintage bike's brake cable. Of course that information is probably actually a youtube video (I refresh every single c…

I think it's a decent point. Maybe we generalise from "the sort of people who read books" suggesting it's something virtuous. Or we have certain books in mind (rather than trashy romance novels).

Reminds me a bit of the idea of tea drinkers as some cultured ideal.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#356

Post by prawn » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:00 AM UTC

idopmstuff wrote: post #290

jjoonathan wrote: post #33

There is far more content than there used to be but no more hours in the day. Our filters must reject more. Yes, there are costs -- deep work & study both suffer -- but there are benefits too: informational content that can be compressed does get compressed. An introduction to a concrete skill that would at one time have been padded out to fit into an hour long movie or lecture might become a 30 minute youtube video…

I'm reading a book on sleep training a baby that's ~20 years old, I think, and it's like 75% unnecessary. I attribute it to the fact that when it was out, there were fewer books/other media competing for attention, plus it wasn't easy to go find additional information by Googling, so people attributed value to extra, borderline-useless info in books.

The method we leaned on (with success) was a one-page PDF shared by another parent. So many books of this sort are a bullet-point list fleshed out to justify the sale price, and little else. Case studies and history and whatever else.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#357

Post by mlyle » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:05 AM UTC

rjzzleep wrote: post #347

mlyle wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side is that when people get used to consuming content in 30 second blipverts, they become unable to maintain attention through a 10 second break in the action. I don't know for sure about causation, but the students that I see incessantly consume tiktok completely lose state and working context in a very short time. It's a very strong correlation. (And, I disagree a bit with your premise: for those of us wh…

TL;DR if we keep the direct environment of our child clean and limit distractions she's calm, and focused. If we don't she gets whiny and somewhat unbearable. I'm raising a child right now and it's pretty simple to observe a few simple patterns: 1. if there is stuff in her visible range during any activity that is even mildly interesting she wants it and it distracts from any activity. be it her own scooter, or her o…

Small kids struggle with focus, and here it's a good thing: they work to expand their environment and explore.

And, yes, you're totally right: too many toys and other things seem to exist to exploit this in the name of keeping kids quiet for a couple of minutes and extracting money from guardians. Not to mention the excessive use of tablets and screen time for kids under 5.

But I'm talking about something somewhat different: I know quite a few 17-19 year olds that genuinely want to absorb information, but literally cannot hold focus through a 15 second interruption. This is way more prevalent now than a few years ago, and it seems to be the students who are obsessed with short-form video that struggle the most.

I think all the things you're mentioning are relevant, but the big thing is that with mobile devices and short-form content we've created an environment where distraction never lets up. Most of us had to learn to be bored during some of our summer and sit with the feeling: that opportunity doesn't really exist now for youth.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#358

Post by wraptile » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:05 AM UTC

mlyle wrote: post #139

jjoonathan wrote: post #33

There is far more content than there used to be but no more hours in the day. Our filters must reject more. Yes, there are costs -- deep work & study both suffer -- but there are benefits too: informational content that can be compressed does get compressed. An introduction to a concrete skill that would at one time have been padded out to fit into an hour long movie or lecture might become a 30 minute youtube video…

The flip side is that when people get used to consuming content in 30 second blipverts, they become unable to maintain attention through a 10 second break in the action. I don't know for sure about causation, but the students that I see incessantly consume tiktok completely lose state and working context in a very short time. It's a very strong correlation. (And, I disagree a bit with your premise: for those of us wh…

> when people get used to consuming content in 30 second blipverts, they become unable to maintain attention through a 10 second break in the action.

I keep hearing this but is there actual evidence? My anecdata is that I can watch tiktoks and read programming books all day without one impacting the other. I honestly have trouble believing that our attention mechanism is so flawed it can be broken so easily.

I think the more likely explanation is that consumed content is just more efficient these days. In other words, it's not our attention span that's changing but our data culture. I think that's a good thing too.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#359

Post by zhte415 » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:06 AM UTC

carabiner wrote: post #41

Trying to read classic literature really makes this apparent. Hemingway's Sun Also Rises must have been a riveting adventure story when it was published in 1926, but how can it compete with 10,000 hours of adventure travel on youtube, netflix etc.? Same with Moby Dick in 1850s... these were glimpses into exotic lives rarely heard of back then, but today you can find those stories or similar in vivid moving pictures a…

They're a different epistemology. Tools of storytelling - video vs. book in this case - are being conflated with their use. They are tools not exclusive to a single epistemology, many ways to explore many perspectives of 'what'.

Contrast, for example that either of these books' narration allows a reader to fill in a lot of the blanks with experience, both real and imagined, constructing it for themselves even down to the temperature of the air, shade of light at dusk, smell of the air, exact tone and pitch of voice of a speaker. Vs. a video where the experience is fully narrated and scenes presented in 4k. Is the video 'more digestible' because it's a different thing being digested?

Not that these tables can't and often aren't reversed. Some vloggers say little, sometimes 'scaffolding' only some understanding through a bit of backstory, or allow their audience to similarly construct experiences of the pieces of a journey. And some books are instruction manuals, or unintentionally read as so.

A tool, be that video, text, audio, game, is only that. It's just a medium, a method that's surface to the deeper world view of the 'maker'.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#360

Post by andirk » Tue, Jul 25, 2023, 5:10 AM UTC

wraptile wrote: post #358

mlyle wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side is that when people get used to consuming content in 30 second blipverts, they become unable to maintain attention through a 10 second break in the action. I don't know for sure about causation, but the students that I see incessantly consume tiktok completely lose state and working context in a very short time. It's a very strong correlation. (And, I disagree a bit with your premise: for those of us wh…

> when people get used to consuming content in 30 second blipverts, they become unable to maintain attention through a 10 second break in the action. I keep hearing this but is there actual evidence? My anecdata is that I can watch tiktoks and read programming books all day without one impacting the other. I honestly have trouble believing that our attention mechanism is so flawed it can be broken so easily. I think…

What kind of knowledge are all you getting from Tiktok? Technical knowledge? Philosophical? I thought the app was for lip syncing + lazy cheerleading and the occasional Chinese data mining. But I am perfectly happy hopping on the bandwagon if it has substance!