Informing Ourselves to Death (1990)

https://web.archive.org/web/20031029211844/http://www.frostbytes.com/~jimf/informing.html

by Chronos52 • 9 days ago

4 1 9 days ago

web.archive.org

On a related note, There’s an Ancient Solution to Our Modern Crisis of Attention: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/opinion/attention-crisis-...

Seneca observed that the minds of those who read too many scrolls too quickly became restless and unsteady. This kind of mind was less able, he noted, to “stay in one place and spend time with itself.”
Professors report that students now have difficulty watching feature-length films, let alone finishing books. On average, we check email 77 times a day, and often it’s not because of a notification — we interrupt ourselves. We’re not even able to focus on our devices: Two decades ago, a given task could hold our attention for two and a half minutes; today, research shows, we make it only 47 seconds on one screen before succumbing to the itch to switch.

Informing Ourselves to Death (1990)

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