Tiktok is one of the best examples of why infinite scrolling should be banned.
Our attention span is being robbed
151–160 of 161 posts
Re: Our attention span is being robbed
#152Honestly, it's articles like this that lead me to be so stingy with my attention. I wanted to close the tab a third of the way into the article not because I'm incapable of paying attention, but because the article was wasting my time by shoving the same simple point into my face over and over again with no evidence or interesting implications. I will pay attention to articles with a reasonable density of information…
Counterpoint: I am heartened to see this post. Weaker writing skills are the norm, even if they don't (always) bubble to the top of sites like HN.
The shortening of our collective attention span hurts our ability to reach and be reached in many ways, writing included.
It would be easy to cry "hypocrite" on seeing someone whose writing needs work (and significant editing) calling for longer-form content and more focus on the written word, but I feel a bit more hopeful instead.
Re: Our attention span is being robbed
#153May be it’s time discover and read Jacques Ellul.
Also Michel Glouscard
Re: Our attention span is being robbed
#154We know this already, but I wonder what the remedies are. My SO can barely watch a movie or tv show before she gets back to infinite scrolling socials, it's a disaster. 5 minutes is the most she can do. Going out with me or friends is the same, few minutes and she's back checking emails and socials. I decided to lead by example and delete all socials, even reddit or linkedin, but it's impossible.
> I decided to lead by example and delete all socials, even reddit or linkedin Or instead just put the phones on the other side of room when watching a movie...
I don't want to tell her what to do.
Re: Our attention span is being robbed
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd suggest ... not, for the most part. Though there's the option of planting little long-focus concentration seeds by dropping references to both longer-form high-quality works and the mindset that it takes to absorb them within more accessible materials. Books have pretty much always had an accessibility problem --- they're hard to publicise and attract readers to, and there's a considerable infrastructure that's b…
I am curious. If it's not too personal - you seem to be someone who reads a lot and synthesises it together into interesting output. You appear to have some control and resistance to the attention stealing machine, and haven't succumbed to the traps we're bemoaning elsewhere in the thread - tiktok, instagram. What use you make of hackernews and reddit appears to be controlled and productive. Is that a fair assessment…
It's a struggle, and reading long-form content remains challenging. I've an 180,000 book I'd very much like to be reading and ... keep finding myself distracted from it. I'm nowhere near the level of effectiveness and productivity I'd like to be, and I'm constantly fighting various mediated platforms as well as my own psychology in this.
(It's only one of many on my rather intimidating stack....)
The mainstream social media sites never much appealed to me. Facebook always seemed sus, Twitter, more problem than solution. Instagram and TikTok seem well below my age cohort, and I've engaged with either in a very limited fashion --- occasional content that pops up, but no accounts or apps.
My principle mobile device has no interactive account-linked services. I do use Pocket (which ... has issues: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5x2sfx/pocket_...>). I'll read a fair bit of HN, for example, but have to go to another device to actually respond. It's also an e-ink tablet / book-reader, rather than a phone. I've installed very few apps: Termux, a podcast app, a feed reader (which frankly isn't much use), Internet Radio (listening to BBC 4 presently with Liz's exit), Pocket, as mentioned. Little else. Not even email, as yet. That said, e-ink and tablets whilst improvements over emissive, colour-enabled, phone-based mobile devices won't excise you of your own daemons and frailties. It still takes work.
Shutting off WiFi is a huge boon. I don't do it nearly enough.
I disable all notifications where those exist.
Increasing general hostility toward any form of intelligence and informational benefit of the Web are their own strong incentives to curtail usage.
Reddit has shown a constant and increasingly dark series of patterns for years, with a sharp inflection about four years ago. My subreddit is now largely a testament to that fact, and I've almost wholly abandoned use of both it and Reddit at large. My experience is that sites whose goals don't match mine tend to match it increasingly less with time. See: https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/8rq08y/i_wont_...> and https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/9ebkjh/current...>, both of which point to other long-standing concerns.
Otherwise:
- There's this set of (somewhat aspirational) principles I try to follow: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32669503>
- I'd really like to have tools for better monitoring and reviewing what I've read and researched over time. Amongst Pocket's many, many, many failings is that it Is Not At All This But Should Be. Reviewing previous reads ... one often finds that many of them really weren't all that significant. Letting information stew for a bit is often useful, it filters out much uncertainty and bullshit. One notion I'm still looking to properly implement is what I call "BotI", or Best of the Interval. Selecting top items by a period --- week, month, year, etc.
- I have some guilty pleasures. An Imgur binge every so often (a few times a week or month) can give some contact with current trends. Again, not used via an account. Mastodon and Diaspora* have been my principle social outlets. Both can be time sucks, and I try to aggressively filter what I follow, mostly through a curated "highest interest" list or aspect (Diaspora* terminology, similar to Google+ Circles), of people who post with low frequency and high(er) salience. I'll adjust and prune those aggressively.
- I'd been active on Google+ from inception to death, which was an ... interesting experience. It was by stages novel, useless, interesting, useful, and finally, disappointing. Something of a cautionary tale. There were numerous premonitions of what have emerged since as failings of social platforms. Most of the darker aspects of which, I have to say, Google seemed to handle well, though overall adoption of the platform and Google's incoherent strategy regarding it seem to have been the principle fatal blows.
I'm not sure that's coherent, hope it helps.
Re: Our attention span is being robbed
#156Can I get a TLDR please?
TLDR this time is “Too long, don’t read”
Re: Our attention span is being robbed
#157Honestly, it's articles like this that lead me to be so stingy with my attention. I wanted to close the tab a third of the way into the article not because I'm incapable of paying attention, but because the article was wasting my time by shoving the same simple point into my face over and over again with no evidence or interesting implications. I will pay attention to articles with a reasonable density of information…
[deleted]
Re: Our attention span is being robbed
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
On weekends I make a point not to open any social media and immediately go heads down into my project. I only look at fun web stuff after I'm mentally spent.
On weekends I kick back and do whatever I feel like. Time to recover, not to drain the bucket even more.
Yeah I suppose depends on your priorities. For me I'm trying to make another career change. Gotta learn more.
Re: Our attention span is being robbed
#159Thinking out loud here...is it possible to use the same patterns for good? Like, infinite scroll, bite-sized chunk UI, etc. that trick our minds into reading a full book?
It might be a good way to inform people about things they should know (worker rights, important financial decisions) without having them sit and read 10 pages about it. You could instead release the information in bite-sized chunks as a feed they can subscribe to.
For example, I wouldn't want to read a lot of the content I write, so I considered releasing the tl;dr as feed.
Re: Our attention span is being robbed
#160I think there may be typographic concerns to consider in some instances, like when reading articles on the web. I'm a novice in this area, but I feel like there are certain variations of line length + line height (measure/the space between paragraph lines) + font size + paragraph length that affect how willing I am to really read an article in depth vs. just skimming it. Personally I find myself more likely to read a…
Yep. Good typography, straightforward writing, plain language and distraction-free designs are doing the reader a huge favor.
I spend an absurd amount of time editing my content for readability and easy parsing. The topic is tedious enough on its own so I don't want to add to it. People actually notice and bring it up.