For years I have been complaining about the loss of attention by the American people…..they cannot seem to focus on one subject for very long….this is why most of my post are between 300 to 500 words….studies have shown that any longer than that and the reader losses all concentration. Americans have the attention span of a puppy in a toy store.
My concern seems to be well founded, though I did not know that some were actually studying this phenom……..
Your attention span is, uh… well… whatever, but it probably can’t beat that of your average goldfish, a new study says. Microsoft reached this conclusion after surveying more than 2,000 Canadians and monitoring the brain activity of 112 people, Yahoo! Canada reports. In our age of buzzing phones and 140-character news items, they say, the Canadian attention span has dropped from an average of 12 seconds in 2000 to the jittery low of eight seconds today. The average goldfish, it’s believed, can concentrate for nine, researchers say. “Canadians with more digital lifestyles … struggle to focus in environments where prolonged attention is needed,” the study says. More specifically, 44% of survey respondents say they struggle to focus on tasks and 37% say their inability to use time well forces them to work late or on weekends, the National Post reports.
In the brain-activity phase, participants performed “game-like tasks” designed to measure attention span while researchers measured their brainwaves with electroencephalography (EEG), the Globe and Mail reports. The upshot: Digitally savvy consumers start with powerful attention and fade, while others are less engaged at first but can concentrate for longer. The findings held true for young and old alike, by the way. Microsoft conducted the study in part to help marketing firms reach modern-day audiences: “We wanted to understand how [digital life is] affecting the way that Canadians see and interact with the world,” a consumer expert at Microsoft tells the Ottawa Citizen. “It’s our new ‘newsfeed reality,’ as I like to put it.” (“Wasting time on the Internet” is now an Ivy League class.)
Worse than a goldfish? I weep for society!
As a resident of Canuckistan, I’d just like to say….uh….I forget.
LOL
But seriously, this is devastating news for the future of mankind. It will be the biggest obstacle to addressing ALL our problems as a society. Progress will be made more & more unlikely as attention spans shrink. If one can concentrate long enough to think about it, we’ve already seen the evidence in the last decade or two.
Thanks to technology, our attention spans have shrunk to a point where goldfish can concentrate longer. Motherfucking goldfish!!! Goldfish put in a tank with a piranha actually forget that their toothy roommate has eaten all the other goldfish in the bowl…and has already eaten half of their body! And we’re no better than that? (Spoiler Alert: No!)
Forget getting solved. Forget being adequately explained. The trouble is that very few of the problems we face as a society can be even be IDENTIFIED as problems in that amount of time. Fuck, just prying people away from their distracting devices is near impossible as it stands right now. Imagine what it will be like as the tech gets MORE invasive and MORE consuming.
Short attention spans favour 2 groups:
1) Republicans: Once the party of reason, they increasingly rely on short catch phrases and ideas that fall apart with any amount of thought. Lucky for them, even among the folks who still bother to vote, few care to think about “icky political things” long enough for those ideas to fall apart. “Tax cuts mean more money for my next Stupid Phone? Yeeehah!”
2) Peddlers of stupid, unnecessary, worthless, wastes of time, money & precious resources. Food items that are only technically “food”. Products that fall apart in less time than it takes to build & transport them. Payday loans. On-line “universities”. Signing, wall-mounted, bass.
Literally nothing but base urges and infantile stupidity will increasing dominate everyone’s agenda. (As if this place was run by Plato now) We’re seriously fucked.
I’d put Peak Attention Span way ahead of Peak Oil. This is a fucking Planet Ender asteroid heading right for us. Too bad Bruce Willis is too involved in sexting some tranny in Armenia to do anything about it.
Oh you are so spot on……did you ever see a movie called “Idiocracy”? Not a barn burner by any stretch……but so damn close to the truth that it is scary…..get a copy you will love it!
No, but it’s on TV in my neck of the woods fairly often. I’ve been meaning to record it. But every time it’s on, my VCR is full.
Mind you, I think I’m LIVING the movie as it is.
Worth seeing and yes we are definitely living the movie today….it is a comedy but sadly true……
You mentioned that most Americans have the attention span of a puppy in a pet store — or something of that nature — and I would like to add that it is my opinion that a lot of them are stuck at the maximum intelligence level of that same puppy — an intelligence level that never exceeds that of a two year old human being. — My justification for this seemingly outlandish statement can be found in observing the way the masses tend to vote and how they tend to be totally ignorant of even the most mundane answers to the simplest political questions — Just ask a stranger on the street how many branches of government make up the American government and see how many blank stares you get.
So true…..