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Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

theguardian.com

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Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#31

Post by apsurd »

thombles wrote: post #22

Stolen Focus is an interesting book and worth your time, but it's absolutely set on making the case that governments need to intervene on social media and I don't think it did it very well. I wrote a longish review digging into why back in June but it will probably only make complete sense if you've read the book. https://thomask.sdf.org/blog/2023/06/08/book-review-stolen-f...

Same with this article it seems. It's thought provoking. Worth the read. But the conclusion is rather underwhelming: it's an environment & societal problem. Also Big-Co is evil. That's not wrong per-say, but gee-whiz looks like we gotta add it to the growing list of how everything's terrible.

The message is good just missed an opportunity to carry over the energy into action. I'll try: since we can't change society so easily, perhaps change the environment as a microcosm? Talk to friends about it. Talk to family. Coworkers. Try intentional things like no-phone dinners. Heads down time. Maybe these things are just as silly. And it's especially hard to alter kids behavior because it's very hard to control external social influences.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#33

Post by brigadier132 »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #26
smogcutter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people I know who best moderate their usage are the ones who own their own choices Strikes me that this is true of any addiction.

Not just addictions. The kids I have coached that have the worst behavior always blame their mistakes and behavior on anything but themselves. Zero personal responsibily.

Agreed, the words personal responsibility are frowned upon nowadays since our priority is comfort and 0 judgement. You can choose whether to believe you are in control or choose not to. If you choose not to dont be surprised when you fail to achieve your goals.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#34

Post by andromeduck »

tastyfreeze wrote: post #26
smogcutter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people I know who best moderate their usage are the ones who own their own choices Strikes me that this is true of any addiction.

Not just addictions. The kids I have coached that have the worst behavior always blame their mistakes and behavior on anything but themselves. Zero personal responsibily.

Thesis just kids in general. They'll grow out of it or they won't.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#35

Post by yabatopia »

anolog0 wrote: post #9

Why is it that every time this moral panic is written about, there are no solid studies to back it up? Surely, if there was really a society-wide epidemic of focus, there would be some clear metric for focus which researchers would have 20-30 years of data and studies on, right? This should be a very testable hypothesis, so where is all the hard science on it? Even in this article, the author just takes some statemen…

No need to panic: there is some research available. I found this article on The Verge an interesting read: Why note-taking apps don't make us smarter, https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/25/23845590/note-taking-apps... .

It links to an article in the New York Times, citing a study that lasted approximately 20 years. (No direct link, because paywall)

Gloria Mark, a professor of information science at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Attention Span,” started researching the way people used computers in 2004. The average time people spent on a single screen was 2.5 minutes. “I was astounded,” she told me. “That was so much worse than I’d thought it would be.” But that was just the beginning. By 2012, Mark and her colleagues found the average time on a single task was 75 seconds. Now it’s down to about 47.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#36

Post by moffkalast »

Aurornis wrote: post #23

All of these supposed revelations that companies try to make products that people will use were supposed to empower people to break free from these addictions Yet anecdotally, these narrative seem to give people more excuses to engage further with their addictions of choice. I’ve heard so many variations of “It’s not my fault I use so much (Facebook|TikTok|Reddit), don’t you know they have people employed to make the…

In the words of Jack Sparrow, "Me? I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest."

You can always trust a corporation to be a corporation. These days I'm frankly more surprised when I'm not screwed over.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#37

Post by guntars »

It sounds like her son has ADHD (and her too likely as it’s mostly genetic), just like me and millions of others. No, it’s not an epidemic. Social media and phones in general are the perfect “solution” for brains that are in a constant craving for stimulation.

I don’t want to get into the whole personal responsibility vs evil companies dichotomy, but something that has helped me tremendously is wasting time on my own terms, not because I got a notification. There are days when I don’t receive a single email because I’ve aggressively unsubscribed from almost everything. Same for the notifications on the phone - if, say, Uber sends me a notification for a coupon for 50% off at Chick-fil-a, that’s an immediate banishment and the app can no longer send any. If that degrades the app experience when I do need a car, that’s their problem for abusing my trust.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#38

Post by [deleted] »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #18
wand3r wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? Frankly this is barely an exaggerated tl;dr: My Godson was randomly obsessed with Elvis for one summer so years later I forced him to go to Graceland but he wanted to be on snapchat and also watches porn. I needed to understand why this happened so I traveled to 3 different continents to speak with experts but I won't tell you much about what they said. I vacationed to Provincetown and did a digital detox I sa…

Thanks I needed a tl:dr; I definitely didn't have the attention span to read it all!

[deleted]

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#39

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

Was it really stolen or it's us who are constantly looking for content regarding stuff that happens 20,000ft above our heads? Maybe thinking that if we understand it then we'd rise to that level?

When influencers fail to answer questions such as the name of the President or the speaker of the House or the capital of Argentina people laugh at them.

I have come to realize that maybe they are in the right, they are extremely focused on what matters and pertains to their lives

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#40

Post by karaterobot »

wand3r wrote: post #12

This article was a tough read because of the meandering prose and weird personalization narrative they shoe-horned in. > We could, for example, force social media companies to abandon their current business model Cool that the Guardian flew this person to like 3 different locations for the story. Great conclusion. We could also solve poverty by giving everyone high paying jobs... Tristan Harris is referenced in the a…

> The above is an edited extract from Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention by Johann Hari, published by Bloomsbury on 6 January.
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