Attention loss feared as high-tech rewires brain

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/15/BUNI1AB1G2.DTL&feed=rss.technology

by fogus • 17 years ago

25 15 17 years ago

Freebytes• 17 years ago

I have known this is the case for a long time; however, it stems back much farther than simply during the age of the Internet. Ever since the ability to write, mankind has been changing the way thought it processed, memories are stored, and information is ignored.

BigZaphod• 17 years ago

I wish I was joking, but I seriously read to the word "high-tech" in the title and my mind started drifting.

jswinghammer2• 17 years ago

I think people have longer attention spans now. Watch "The Wire" which is by any definition complicated and requiring a huge attention span. Now compare it to "Dallas" which at the time was considered to be too complicated for many people to follow. "The Wire" is certainly far more complicated and hard to follow. I recall watching a whole season and not knowing the names of some major characters because I just didn't have the space to store that information.

These sort of articles get written all the time too. It just seems like it's trying to appeal to an older audience who doesn't understand new technology. I'd imagine more and more newspaper readers are falling into this category.

gojomo3• 17 years ago

I think you're confusing two different (albeit related) axes.

TV is more complex because attention spans are shorter: they need to pack more twists (and more, shorter scenes) into the same amount of time to keep the attention-addled from switching channels.

jswinghammer2• 17 years ago

I don't see more twists these days in the shows I'm talking about. I see shows dumping tons of information on you and making you deal with it and store it in order to keep up. Have you watched "Lost" or "The Wire" or "The Sopranos"?

GHFigs• 17 years ago

"The Wire", as a premium cable drama, also had a far smaller audience than "Dallas", a broadcast soap opera.

mattyfo2• 17 years ago

I stopped reading after the quote: "If our attention span constricts to the point where we can only take information in 140-character sentences, then that doesn't bode too well for our future,"

This seems like a predictable 'woe is technology & future' article.

Yes we use shorter messages and the way we write is different but if that's a problem for you then take a day off and go hike in the woods; it will do your mind wonders.

nazgulnarsil• 17 years ago

but even if any specific alarm is overblown, there is a legitimacy to the fear that the ways we're hacking our brains will ultimately result in a net loss.

"what are you doing? you haven't answered your phone for 2 days!"

"playing this game where I have to collect waddels"

"what's a waddel?"

"I don't know but I'm ranked #3 on the server"

mattyfo2• 17 years ago

I agree, we may be doing things to our brains that are irreversible but I also believe that it's something that we can control and manage.

I used to be an obsessive everquest player but am not anymore because I realized how unhealthy it is. Albeit, that's one small anecdote.

I think the real takeaway here, and I can't say if this article addressed it (because I refuse to read this) is that we as conscious beings have to take time to be self-aware and regulate our activities in a healthy way.

IE Eat your fruits and veggies, exercise, don't smoke, wear seatbelts, don't watch too much TV, spend a limited amount of time on computers, get outside, meditate, play music or draw, explore, expand and be creative and don't read too many alarmist articles.

gojomo3• 17 years ago

"I stopped reading..."

If a single disliked turn of phrase caused you to stop reading an article that was otherwise interesting to you, and you raced to snipe about it here, then you are already a victim of the syndrome described.

Make an appointment with your local Doctor of Attentionology right now, before you get distracted by something else.

eli• 17 years ago

Our brains are constantly being "rewired" by everything we do... So?

This is just like the silly, "Is google making us stupid?" article in The Atlantic over the summer. (Hint: if a news magazine has a question headline, the answer is usually "no.")

gabeybaby2• 17 years ago

The article itself actually makes a decent example. With four headers (the title header and the three sub-headers) the article is more digestible and rewarding to read since you finished four sections instead of one article. The article and this http://xkcd.com/597/ comic make a good point. I feel myself constantly distracted by news feeds and automatic updates to the point where starting and sticking with project becomes difficult. Compare this to society before radio where people had ample amount of time to create personal works simply because they had a lack of things to do. So in a way we're culling some of our deeper culture and ability to ruminate deeply. Yet at the same modern society is creating a whole new information architecture. With all these efficiencies we've created, society has been able to create a vast amount of wealth that wasn't possible before. That wealth can be used to create that deeper culture or those more sophisticate inventions; however, when bits of information can only exist in small containers will we be able to continue the progression. After all, the recently posted Eco article demands that "Culture isn't knowing when Napoleon died. Culture means knowing how I can find out in two minutes."

We'll have all the pieces, but will we still have the conceptual framework to mold new ideas. Will capitalism be enough to stave off these ill effects? With increased filtering and data relationship tools capitalism may be enough to push over the plateau of stupidity this article is foretelling.

gabeybaby2• 17 years ago

After reading Atwood's "Parsing Html The Cthulhu Way" article (http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001311.html), I'd like to add one more thought after reading the following section. "What we have here is an ongoing education problem. The real enemy isn't regular expressions (or, for that matter, goto), but ignorance. The only crime being perpetrated is not knowing what the alternatives are. "

The article is lamenting a possible loss of knowledge over the accumulation of information where knowledge is the obvious preference. And I think that's the point I was originally trying to make with the "before radio" comment. People had less information to work with and yet possibly KNEW more with respect to the amount of information they had available to them.

Attention loss feared as high-tech rewires brain

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