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Have attention spans been declining?

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Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#401

Post by SimplyUnknown »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #373
BirdieNZ wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

ADHD is so prevalent in the US, far more so than most (all?) other disabilities; I believe one of these must be true: - ADHD is severely over diagnosed - ADHD is a trait that was adaptive in the past, and is only pathologically maladaptive in modern life - ADHD the trait is caused by some aspect of modern life (this seems least likely to me) (saying this as diagnosed, with the usual problems)

Not all of these are mutually exclusive, but there is also a fourth option:

- ADHD was severely underdiagnosed in the past and got more accurately diagnosed in recent years

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#402

Post by darkclouds »

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…

> 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 and then a 30 second tiktok,

> it's beautiful to see.

I totally agree. Fleshing out subject matter is seen everywhere, films, books, education, and what the internet has delivered is near instant communication, and access to a much wider array of knowledge and things to see and do. More people can travel the world with ease and relative low cost, so why not try to be more informed about the laws and culture.

When I look at a country that I might want to visit, I have never seen a TL;DR of their laws for inhabitants or tourists, so that puts me off travelling because I dont want to fall foul of the law.

I have however been able to establish that some parts of the German Autobahn has no speed limit when conditions permit, and there is extra car insurance which can be purchased if one is wanting to drive at faster than normal speeds.

The same goes for driving on the Nordschleife, there is an extra insurance option available to purchase in case an accident happens when driving around there.

Considering all the tech and knowledge that exists and Google, the information is still incredibly fragmented, but some of the older professions like law and medicine rely on this knowledge being fragmented in order to justify their existence and I think it gives away their subconcious bias.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#403

Post by onetokeoverthe »

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…

[dead]

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#404

Post by jonathanstrange »

somenameforme wrote: post #372
Brusco_RF wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One thing has changed dramatically in education over just the past 100 years. This [1] is an entrance exam for Harvard in 1869. It was expected that the applicant would be fluent in Greek, Latin, English, that they would have a exceptional grasp of history and geography across the entire world, be able to carry out complex mathematical calculations, compose geometric proofs, and more. That trend also was the same as…

I have to disagree. Your example illustrates that the quality demands of Harvard entry have declined and it's reasonable to assume that other universities have also become more open, as you claim. You're right about that. Universities are less elitist than they used to be.

Nevertheless, the overall demands in higher education have increased tremendously and the courses have also become more focused. In most disciplines, what formerly would have counted as a Ph.D. Thesis is nowadays at M.A. level. I've been in committees for hiring postdocs and Ph.D. students in the humanities, and it's insane what kind of demands are put on the students. I know some center of excellence in my discipline that (unofficially) requires one publication in a good international journal to be taken into consideration as a Ph.D. student. The majority of postdocs who apply for a one year grant nowadays have CVs that would almost certainly have made them assistant professors 30 years ago. There are also more courses and more subjects to learn because progress in science has accelerated very rapidly. For example, someone who studies CS nowadays will learn proofs in complexity theory that used to be cutting edge research 40 years ago.

Overall, I don't buy your negative claims. Over-achievers can quickly finish their undergraduate studies and will move on. At most universities it is possible to cram your curriculum and exams and pass "easy" undergraduate courses very quickly. Lack of elitism is an imaginary problem, probably often made up for political reasons. If you want to see real problems, look at the high student fees, accompanying debt, and the resulting desire to focus on practical job skills and overly fast-paced studies. These are detrimental to science, of course.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#405

Post by watwut »

gardenhedge wrote: post #201
cwkoss wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recipe tiktoks are like 30 seconds long - faster to watch the whole thing than scrolling to find the recipe on a bloated blogspam recipe site.

there's no way anyone just watches a 30s recipe clip one time and then goes and replicates the dish.

I literally achieved that multiple times.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#407

Post by Broken_Hippo »

JPws_Prntr_Fngr wrote: post #110
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…

> 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 and then a 30 second tiktok It's a thin illusion. Brain candy masquerading as real food. Those snap-cut tiktok cooking instructionals aren't teaching my girlfriend to cook the dishes any more than a snap-cut BJJ youtube short could teach me how to do a beri…

She's gonna have to read a recipe and spend hours in the kitchen

You are missing the point. Something might take hours in the kitchen to make, but you don't need to have the entire thing on video. I don't need to see someone make all the shapes with the bread. I don't need to see them wait 45 minutes for something to cook.

Most recipes aren't hours long. Most of them are a list of ingredients and a few short paragraphs: Most online recipes reflect this as well.

And if someone is really unfamiliar, they can look up additional resources. "Best way to dice an onion" or "how to peel a tomato" both have plenty of videos.

I'm going to guess that it is the same for a berimbolo: You don't need to watch hours of someone else on a mat. You just need the instructions so that you can do the practice - just like you don't need to watch someone else practice an instrument, but you might be helped see how they play basic stuff.

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#408

Post by itronitron »

pwpw wrote: post #230
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…

> 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…

So ADHD is a mismatch of people to the current environment/society rather than a neurotype?

Re: Have attention spans been declining?

#409

Post by amelius »

toomim wrote: post #288

My PhD thesis produced an instrument for measuring attention span: https://invisible.college/attention/dissertation.html It is a lot like the author theorized— it uses Mechanical Turk to measure how long people will attend to a task given an incentive. Anyone interested should be sure to check out this survival graph, that depicts the length of time people will attend to a task, given characteristics of the task and…

I would personally place a non focusable window on top of that annoying gif.
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