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Have attention spans been declining?

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Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#361

Post by pier25 »

cubefox wrote: post #263
pier25 wrote: post #240

I've noticed that I rarely properly read anything online anymore. 90% of the time I'm just scanning or skimming. I do focus on stuff for extended periods of time like watching a movie, reading a book, working on something, etc.

> I do focus on stuff for extended periods of time like watching a movie, reading a book, working on something, etc. Note that watching a movie requires far less attention than reading a book. Movies, first, are compressed stories (movie scripts are less than a hundred pages) where, second, nothing is left to the imagination. I'd bet that people read much fewer books today than before video streaming became popular,…

> I mostly stopped reading books since I bought a smartphone

Before smartphones I read voraciously and then around 2010 I kinda stopped. Not technical books (which I still read when the need arises) but novels.

At the start of the pandemic I got a Kindle and since then I've gotten back into the habit of reading fiction. I read at least 1 hour every day.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#362

Post by acters »

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…

You are correct! We may be dismayed by how fast we approached new information (and thereby the speed of action), however, productivity has been steadily rising. On top of that, we are able to act and learn more variety than ever before. There are clear downsides and upsides to the speed. Overall, faster has shown to be better.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#363

Post by goddessoflists »

I find this a very frustrating topic. I've studied psychology so I always feel compelled to look at the data first, but here I'm going to focus more on personal experience.

For me, the short answer is: it depends. Somtimes, I do have a short attention span--I'll start watching a video but then also look at the comments and suggested videos at the same time.

But if I find a truly interestng article or video, I will give it complete attention, even if it's a longform article or a half-hour documentary. I listen to hour-long lectures and podcasts.

What I don't like about this entire phenomenon is that people saw attention spans were declining and then decided to create stuff that doesn't require much attention.

I think instead of creating more short content, we should have made it scarce. People will consume what is available. There is much more short-form content available today than it was 5 years ago, because social media turned it into an advantage.

We should have continued creating long-form content. People would have paid attention to it if that was the only thing available.

I'd also partly blame the idea that you must be reading a lot, watching a lot, keep up with everything, and in general get more things done. So people turn to summaries and bullets, just to avoid being "left behind."

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#364

Post by klyrs »

cubefox wrote: post #318
h2odragon wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Quantum Computing" is a cult with commercial interests / investor scams. I'm even more cynical about the economists.

Scott Aaronson has often called out inflated claims by quantum computer startups.

He's been more of a quantum fanboy of late. He does still talk about obvious fraud, but he's largely uncritical of the bigger players' offerings. Likewise, he's on openAI's payroll; no hard-hitting critique to be found. His Busy Beaver content is top-notch, though.

But when he shares his opinions on cancel culture, gender, etc.? He's just another blogger.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#365

Post by wraptile »

andirk wrote: post #360
wraptile wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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!

It's a totally under rated platform imo - there are a lot of high quality creators!

In particular I'm following UX (@designertom), CX and design channels as I'm still transitioning from backend to full stack development. Tech news, Producthunt-like content (especially in bleed edge areas like AI), art stuff, technical gardening (@transformativeadventures), science stuff (@hankgreen) and health/workout (@dr_idz).

The initial problem with tiktok is that you need quite a bit of time to train the algorithm to actually give you the stuff you want as the search and other discovery areas are really bad on purpose.

Also worth noting that Tiktok now supports long form content so some video can get pretty long. The player also has 2x video speed and good seeker so it's easy to roll through a lot of information very efficently!

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#366

Post by mercurialsolo »

Attention spans are an uber representation of something that is far more granular - complexity of task, context length, prior knowhow (affects complexity at a personal level), environmental noise.

If our cognition is impacted by information, then by the very fact that attention span is a function of the information in our environment. I quite subscribe to the fact noisier environments lead to decline in attention spans.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#367

Post by Panoramix »

cameronh90 wrote: post #333
nunez wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all of those sites have a Jump to Recipe button though, and TikTok recipe videos often miss a lot of important details...

If you cook often, you can usually infer the details. The same is true for recipe sites and books, but at a different level of detail. Usually when I use a tiktok cooking video, I'm not really "following" it, but just using it to get a general idea then riffing on it.

That only works for dishes that are related or similar to other dishes you've made in the past.

As soon as a banana leaf, raw fish, etc etc enters the picture you'll want to read the long form. Also if you want to actually get better at cooking, tiktoks just won't cut it as there's no time to discuss all the nuances - and quality food is an amalgamation of many small nuances.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#368

Post by TonyStr »

EatingWithForks wrote: post #73
izzydata wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to believe it is reversible. It's not a genetic problem so it is a problem of environment. If you tech detoxed for a whole year living in the woods or something then tried to read Moby Dick it would likely be very tolerable again. You could study some people who have gone to prison and have little opportunity for endless media consumption.

Moby Dick was never meant to be read how it is read now. It was originally a serial, so like a webcomic or a fanfic that's actively being worked on. Those are still very popular mediums of media.

Do you have a source on this? I can't find anything, and Wikipedia seems to contradict what you say

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#369

Post by mlyle »

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…

Well, we're discussing a post that looks at a bunch of moderate-quality evidence in this area. Unfortunately, no one had the foresight to realize that attention span measures would be very important for us to have high quality control evidence before 2000.

So we have some moderate quality measures that say that attention span has become lower over time. And we have higher quality measures that show that low attention span is correlated to consuming short-form video. For example, https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/16/8820

> our attention mechanism is so flawed it can be broken so easily.

In my opinion, our attention mechanism is very weak compared to the demands of academic study and modern knowledge work.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#370

Post by DANmode »

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…

> TL;DR

Too perfect.

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