Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thirty years ago, I read a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman, in which he made very similar points about broadcast television. I don't remember all his points, but I vividly remember how talked about how you'll be watching a news story about something awful, maybe an earthquake in which hundreds of people died, and then with practically no warning you'll be hearing a happy jingle from a toothpast…
That talking point - that rapid-form media creates attention deficit problems is honestly overdone and there's no evidence that it's true at all (that I know of). ADHD exists and is a mostly genetic condition, you can't catch it without something serious like cPTSD. Amusing Ourselves To Death emphasized way more the angle of densensitization. I used to think doomscrolling broke my brain before I was diagnosed. Later…
Re: First, make me care
#261I have ADHD myself, so you're not telling me anything I didn't know. Rapid-fire media consumption cannot create the genetic condition, but as you said it can create the symptoms. And that's the important part anyway: a generation that has trouble paying attention to important things because they're getting habituated to rapid-fire video formats. Even if the symptoms (chasing the next dopamine hit) are only acute and not chronic, as long as people are addicted (behaviorally, not chemically) to phone screens, those acute symptoms will occur so often that they might as well be chronic for all practical purposes, because more often than not, people will be in that slightly-dazed state caused by coming off the addictive behavior. (I used to have that myself after a multi-hour gaming session, before I realized that I was displaying all the signs of addiction and quit computer games cold turkey. So I know what it feels like.)