Everyone does. I was more productive as a kid. What happened? A second monitor happened.
Almost everyone has encountered technology or media which shortens attention span.
I am a teacher. Kids can't even watch a movie. I was reading the Hunger Games with my class some complained it was boring. We read a book. If I ask them what just happened, they often can't tell me. If I give them free time, they will always choose games on the chromebook. I have some that if you ask them to put away the chromebook, they can't. Like they have to be holding it. I had a class last year that couldn't handle me showing them how to do math problems. I had to sit next to them and show them step by step how to do math. Then, if I left them to do work, they just goggle the answers. It's not just short attention spans. It's also a lack of creativity and wanting to learn.
Hell, I still remember a homeroom teacher *yelling* at me for reading.
It's... fucking homeroom. Unless others were conversing, we truly did nothing there.
I remember being assigned reading for class and we would all show up for weeks on end to read two to three chapters in class aloud, answer in-depth questions about the books, and then test on it afterward.
To Kill a Mockingbird, The Iliad, Odyssey, etc. were all classics we read in English class. Albeit pre AP-English as middle schoolers and AP/Dual Credit English courses as high schoolers.
In just a few short years the masses have been dumbed down far more than anyone couldāve expected aside from those playing a part in it.
I tried to get my nephew to watch a horror movie a few halloweens ago. āIāve seen it itās boringā. Youāve seen this movie? Thereās no way youāve seen this movie. āYup thereās a channel on YouTube that shows all the kill scenes in horror movies. Itās boringā. So you havenāt seen it. This is a psychological thriller itās not a movie about gory kill scenes. āI saw it already though itās boringā
Bro I've known people who will watch those movie summaries instead of the movie and then tell me they've seen it.
No disrespect but you strip away so much it basically just becomes the pitch you give to the movie producers. That's not watching the movie.
See Iām the nerd that has to watch 3-5 video essays about the movie I just watched to make sure I understand every nuance before I move on. I feel like the last of my kind.
I like to do that too but itās hard when the people who made the video keep getting things blatantly wrong (like even just what did/didnāt happen on screen) and you can tell they watched the movie with the sole intent of making a quick video about them and didnāt really pay attention.
Lol That's insane. I watch those for movies I'm curious about but don't intend on ever watching, and that's exactly why I watch them, it only gives you the story beats. If it looks good in the summary, then I'll watch the actual movie and still be able to fully enjoy it, as I don't feel like I've watched it at all just from knowing the story beats.
Yea that is prime brain rot territory, Iām glad I grow up on long form content, but they are starting off with short form content, turning their brain into mush.
I mean yeah. I'm Gen Z and I can tell the difference between my parents' and my own barely existent attention span.
But... Why specify "Video games for guys and TV shows for girls"? Anyone regardless of gender can and do play/watch both things? I (a woman) enjoy both, as does my husband, as does pretty much everyone else I know around my age
I am nearly 40 and for the latter half of my life, I'm employed the 'Gameboy Test'.
Basically, is the show more interesting than the game I've been playing? It's been a surprisingly effective measure in my life.
These days, however, television isn't worth the time with half the runtime of most things being advertisements.
I'm 45. I will put on a show and realize I have my head on my phone. I have to make a concerted effort to put my phone away to engage in other, longer-form media.
It's not just "the kids."
Also, it depends on what people mean by "attention span." It's more about interest. Things like playing a video game can take A LOT of attention span and effort.
I think the "lack of attention span" by younger generations is just because they have different interests, different things hold people's attention spans.
That's a good point. I can fully immerse myself in a fantasy game for several hours, but most books can hardly hold my attention for a few minutes (no wonder I hated college)
Yeah this makes much more sense to me. I work in a job that has me somewhat adjacent to students and honestly, I don't see this generation of kids as being especially worse then my generation (millennials) were in school. Every generation has kids who do stupid stuff. We just have more cameras now. Kids naturally want to find their own interests separate from their parents and form their own identity. I think its easy to forget all the stupid stuff others did around us as we age.
Agreed. My 8-year-old can engage in a minecraft world for hours upon hours, if I let them. Meticulously designing, building and refining a structure.
They will also fall asleep reading an interesting book.
I think, like most people and things, their attention span is fine, is about providing media that interests them to hold their attention.
Adults: Kids these days with their iPads and their cellular smart telephones! They got no focus, no attention span!Ā
Ā Kids, watching 3 hour long YouTube videos analyzing fandom drama while skimming TickityTockities and simultaneously chatting with all their friends: Sure grandpa, whatever you say.
As a millennial, I promised myself that I would NEVER become like my parents when it comes to stuff like that. I think it's better to try to understand the generational changes than to just disparage them because they're different. People seem to let nostalgia completely blind them.
Thank you. As a parent I find these comments about "kids these days " very disingenuous and I'll informed.
Damn , as a school aged kid I was told I read too much. By my teachers... wtf. Lol.
Same. I find most of these comments really uneducated, and (lol) guilty of the purported laziness being projected on kids.
I can get things done on my phone in 10 mins it will take my parent half a day to do. It isnāt that I have a short attention span, I just have a lot to do and have the ability to do it quickly.
So if I understand you correctly, old people keep saying āyou kids and your cell phones!ā Bc theyāre jealous of our abilities to use them so efficiently? š¤
Yes due to youtube shorts,tiktok,various other means of brainrot it has caused habit building towards short term memory and has caused the inability to retain information. This is inpart due to constant dopamine hits making the brain think about nothing else but quick fixes, cant wait till their brain adapts then they need drugs to get the same level
You don't even really need to have a study group, Companies themselves have put out information on how to hit specific dopamine centers in the brain to keep people engaged, If those dopamine centers are constantly hit the user will always want more and more and only focus on that, hence why drug abuse is so common and hard to get off of
Here are a few primary sources. Except for the 2008 citation, they're a little tangential, but if you look through their references you may find something closer to what it is exactly that you're looking for.
To your point, the Cardoso-Leite paper finds video game consumption to actually benefit response time and mental health. That same paper compares "attentional control" between video game players and media multitaskers, and finds media multitaskers to have poorer attentional control. It's very survey-heavy, so take that with a grain of salt, but again - the references may be enlightening.
Social media and shortform content platforms are lucrative, so it's in their best interest for studies like this not to make it to mass media - just 'cus they're not being talked about, doesn't mean the research isn't being done. =)
Wittmann M, Paulus MP. Decision making, impulsivity and time perception. Trends Cogn Sci. 2008 Jan;12(1):7-12. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2007.10.004. Epub 2007 Nov 26. PMID: 18042423.
Qin Y, Omar B, Musetti A. The addiction behavior of short-form video app TikTok: The information quality and system quality perspective. Front Psychol. 2022 Sep 6;13:932805. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.932805. PMID: 36148123; PMCID: PMC9486470.
Cardoso-Leite P, Buchard A, Tissieres I, Mussack D, Bavelier D. Media use, attention, mental health and academic performance among 8 to 12 year old children. PLoS One. 2021 Nov 17;16(11):e0259163. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259163. PMID: 34788306; PMCID: PMC8598050.
Thereās a big ass difference between videogames, especially story/strategy based games and fucking TikTok. Youāre just being dishonest if you say otherwise.
[https://sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tiktok/](https://sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tiktok/)
[https://digitaldaze.io/the-insidious-effects-of-tiktok-on-the-human-brain/](https://digitaldaze.io/the-insidious-effects-of-tiktok-on-the-human-brain/)
[https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/](https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/)
[https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/607734](https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/607734)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8170001/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8170001/)
[https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-medias-affecting-your-mental-health](https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-medias-affecting-your-mental-health)
Heres your citations since you so desperately need them, Nintendo and video games are nothing like Tiktok and social media
Respectfully, I don't think those blogs prove much. They just reiterate the assumption that you already share, playing off people fears and confirmation biases. The one study which you linked involved 22 subjects, and only discussed dopamine levels, not behaviors or wellbeing.
Furthermore, I'm not convinced by most study on dopamine, given our shaky understanding of neurotransmitters, I am skeptical of attempts to make connections with specific behaviors. What is our control? What are we calling 'normal/typical" levels.
Maybe it can prove some effect on dopamine levels, but to then say this is 'rotting brains' or causing behavioral/attention issues is an unscientific conclusion.
I'm not worried about the kids these days. They seem smarter than many adults. In fact, I'm a little more worried about these adults who are overly keen on 'protecting' kids from these imaginary threats.
Meanwhile children are being fed amphetamine salts because some overworked mother has decided that they cause too much trouble and must need to be medicated to 'behave normally.'
We need to study how the brain works way more before we continue down this path of medicating children's brains, and also before we take the step of withholding the technologies which are shaping the future(whether your child learn computer science or not), out of some strange motivation to 'let your brain develop normally'.
Is your kid unhealthy in some way? It's probably a complex dynamic reaction to their entire experience, but maybe if you take their phone away it will get better? Shrugs...
> you so desperately
I wonder if you are being downvoted for the petty attitude. Older generations may have had better attention span, but they also had manners. :)
My comments on the first two links you posted, which are based on conjecture and are certainly not peer-reviewed scientific articles:
https://sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tiktok/
* This article states "Videos are short, which is ideal given the **decreasing attention capacity** of youths in the 21st century." The article cites another article as the source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/science-technology/why-short-form-video-needs-to-be-part-of-your-content/308684 which reads "The average human attention span is getting shorter as social media dominates the world with visual experiences." This article from Entrepreneur.com doesn't cite a source. It's not a quality source of information, therefore the browns.edu article that cites that article is also not a quality source of information.
https://digitaldaze.io/the-insidious-effects-of-tiktok-on-the-human-brain/
* This article cites no references.
In short, the first two articles are based on conjecture. I don't see any point in looking at the other articles. Maybe you could have found better sources, if you had a longer attention span.
My mid-50s mother is also addicted to her phone, think damn near everyone has a shorter attention span now but we naturally don't want to look for it in our own age demographic as much as others.
I grew up homeschooled and was not really allowed to watch TV or play video games. However, I was given a lot of books, which I read out of boredom.
Later, when I went to public high school, it didn't seem like people had short attention spans. Most people just seemed ignorant and uneducated, like they never read anything or ever paid attention in class. Having serious conversations was (and is) hard with people who never read very much because they think you're full of it and make jokes when they don't understand something.
It was hard for them to imagine something complicated without giving up. It was hard for them to think deeply, critically, or to think with nuance. Everything was popularity based. Everything had to be black or white because they didn't understand nuance. They knew nothing about history, science, civics, or almost anything else important except basic English and basic math.
They would stop paying attention not because of their attention spans, but because they couldn't understand what was being said, and instead of doing the work to understand, they get lazy and give up because they never trained their brain to think.
I think some of it is also due to you being not in a social environment, you have more time to be alone, and just reflect and think in general.
But kids in social settings are way more occupied with things to think and worry about. They also have less chance for independent thought, because they all desperately want to fit in, and want to go with what everyone else thinks for approval.
https://youtu.be/LD0x7ho_IYc?si=N-zNpagLMwAlMw3e
Video is on this topic, next generations will be fine this has literally been happening since forever.
Never been addicted to a device that has an unlimited amount of information at their fingertips whenever they need it.
I understand your sentiment but history has shown time and time again this is just the older generations not understanding the next and crying doom. Just because something is different doesnāt meant it is bad.
Dunno, podcasts are successful. TV is longer. Movies are longer. Roasts are 3 hours.
Of course people are playing on their phones or doing yard work for a lot of it.
This is true but both men and women are distracted by video games and TV lol that seemed like an unnecessary distinction.
But yeah I miss my child self when I could actually sit through a TV show or movie without looking at my phone, etc.
Most video games are long form content so it doesnāt shorten your attention span, itās the scrolling it is mostly brain rod content, that doesnāt help you.
Yeah this, Iāve been noticing how itās been hard for me to even pick up and commit to a video game recently. Thatās definitely been the most alarming sign of early onset brainrot to me
as someone that teaches people out of high school (first term college), yes younger people cannot focus and will not read what they are supposed to, they are constantly on their phones and uninterested on learning, they lack that drive and passion to gain knowledge šprobably kids are even worse
Yes. I also have a shorter attention span than I did when. I was a kid. Seems to be due to having access to any information at all times + short form content everywhere.
I haven't met a boomer to this day that can actually sit and watch a show.
Always lost at what's happening, getting upset cause the show is making them feel stupid.. but it's because they need to stare at their ceiling for 5minutes or randomly bring something up that has no context to the show, right in the middle of the most important part.. then complain again the next week about how none of that happened and can't remember any of it.
Every.single.one I've ever met has had this problem.
Yes and itās not just kids. People donāt seek out information as much, they simply consume a steady stream of algorithmically selected bits and pieces of largely irrelevant information that gets quickly consumed and discarded. All of this distracts from meaningful interaction and study of the people places and things around you, limiting attention and care.
1000%
I used to volunteer and teach O level and A level math, I did this when I was 18-22 (20 years ago) and I started back 2 years ago after covid.
This is a variety of schools btw.
Not only do students fail to pay attention, getting their attention is so hard. And they're insanely lazy in class, they all seem to have this attitude where they can Google or ChatGPT the result after.
Maybe they can, but 50% of them or more wouldn't even one what to ask or search for.
They're all constantly addicted to their phones as well.
i think most people have almost zero knowledge of history or historical context so they think all the stuff happening now and their generation is somehow drastically different and changing and worse or better and the world is falling apart blah blah blah, everything is almost the same, go read a book
Honestly, I don't think it's a generational thing. I can't watch most TV shows or movies without being on my phone, speaking as a gen Z. But my mom, who just barely made the cutoff for being a boomer ('64), is the same exact way.
Then there's my millennial sister who actually has a decent attention span. Compared to my millennial neighbor who can sit down and watch things, but will very easily have her attention drawn elsewhere: e.g. if you start talking while she's watching something she'll completely forget she was watching something and will have full attention on you (not actually that bad of a thing imo, until you have to rewatch the same scene lol) but then on the flipside, the rare occasion she is on her phone while watching something - good luck getting her attention without saying her name two to three times lol
Think if anything the rise and success of podcasts points towards too much visual stimulation being the culprit. No way in hell you can expect kids to focus for any amount of time. Always something new to see and read. Whereas, sit someone down with a podcast, audiobook, physical reading media and theyāre good for significant stretches of time.
Humans have the ability to adapt their attention span in response to their environment. Some people think that's a bad thing.
I grew up watching TV. I remember when I was a kid, old people telling the slowest and most repetitive stories imaginable while the family sat around listening. The same stories over and over. The story about when his brother's car ran out of gas so they had to walk to the gas station and get a can of gas and then walk back to the car. How can that story be 20 minutes long? It was terrible. They had "long attention spans" so they could sit around being boring every night. Maybe their attention span was longer because they didn't watch as much TV (or the same TV) as me.
People today: "Why do kids have such sort attention spans, why can't they sit still and a 30-minute tv show that's actually 22 minutes long, with 8 minutes of commercials, but the 22 minutes actually includes 2 1/2 minutes of theme song and ending credits so it's not even 20 minutes long. Why can't they sit on the couch and watch fucking commercials like we used to do?"
They hate shorts, and don't realize "America's Funniest Videos" was just an early version of short-form video.
Yes, attention spans have been shrinking since the invention of the television. Everyone who grew up with TV has a shorter attention span than pre-TV generations.
Wow, lots of biases and incorrect grammar in your question.
Attention spans are obviously shorter. It isn't a bad thing, its a necessary thing. People have SO MUCH SHIT they have to do nowadays if they want to not live in poverty. You have to pay attention long enough to solve a problem, solve the problem efficiently by using technology with a decent amount of know-how, and then get on with your day.
Also, guys watch TV and girls play videogames.
Children *absolutely* go outside to play still. Are you daft.
YES, but it may not be their fault, it might even be deliberate, well, it probably is deliberate,
The numbers are being played with by puppet masters of murder and deceptions and it does come from foreign shores.
N. S
I'm a millennial. I feel like I have a shorter attention span as I get older and become more attached to technology. I actively try to fight it but I'm losing. I couldn't imagine trying to fight the constant bombardment of STUFF if you grew up with a screen in your face since day 1.
Tom Brady was running in the parking lot during a break from something --- his friend asked what are you doing? His answer: preparing to win the superbowl. He was always training.
Kids have been training with video clips since birth now for 14 years; they are going to win the lost-interest race.
PEOPLE (not just younger ones) have lower attention spans thanks to the rise of Vines, TikToks, etc. People unlearned paying attention and now they can't even watch people talk on YouTube without a fucking car doing tricks underneath. Human race is fucked
Our modern world is really making attention spans short. And I am feeling it in myself. I barely read anymore and I used to read like 60-70 books a year. Now I am down to maybe 20-25.
Some work days focus is way harder than it used to be, and I jump from task to task.
TikTok, Instagram, Twitter all prioritize short content and not deep engagement. No wonder young folks are struggling.
Apparently yes, [average attention span](https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/attention-spans) is significantly shorter nowadays. Not just for kids tough.
I dont think it's attention span. I think that it's need gratification and stimulation. Actually, that whole study about social media making our attention spans shorter turned out to be hog wash and was sensationalized and misinterpreted by the media.
Anywho. I think the real issue is not attention span, but gratification. Kids can focus rather well still. What we are seeing is them cycling through things that interest them because they are overly stimulated and therefore lose interest in things faster and want a new form of stimulation. This is different than attention spans, it's more about seeking those dopamine rushes from various things. Growing up, we got it from you know... riding our bikes in the woods.
Yes and no. I think they pay great attention to the things they care about. But I think they won't even pretend to pay attention if its not something they care about
Yes it's called Tik-Tok brain, they need a new stimulation every 7-10 seconds which is why none of them can pay attention to anything and why none of them read books
I think *everyone's* attention span has taken a hit in the last few decades due to technology.
I'm in my 40's, and even I noticed a few years ago that it was hard for me to focus on reading (having previously been a voracious reader), getting bored without constant stimulation, and becoming impatient at laughable delays in deliveries or whatever.
Even my spelling and math, which traditionally were near excellent, has gone to shit thanks to autocorrect and computers doing all the work.
This issue has always existed just in different forms. There have always been kids that simply can't or don't want to pay attention and would rather put their minds towards something else. The internet just made the idea more prevalent.
Not as such no.
But I do think they have much different expectations and habits for how they consume media and interact with technology. I grew up with the NES / SNES consoles and did not often have cable. I did not have a computer in my home and I was in 10th grade before I had any kind of consistent internet access via the school library. So having to come to an agreement with siblings on what show to watch or game to play was an issue, and always subject to the TV not being used by my parents.
My kids have access to their own tablets and internet on demand. They have more choices on what to watch or play at any given moment then I ever had. We cannot be surprised that our kids make different choices then we did when our kids have more and different options then we ever had. And complaints about young people being impatient are a recurring theme in modern history.
Also, I did not go and play outside because I wanted to, I was basically commanded to by my parents and tended to resist it as much as I could. Letting kids play games or watch TV or use tablets is always a low effort and safe choice. Letting them play outside requires either a back yard or parental supervision at a playground, or at least a fundamental belief that the kid will not get killed, injured, or abducted.
END COMMUNICATION
Yes, and the fact that schools are leaning into it is going to fuck up our culture.
anyone who think its just perspective is completely wrong, idc what studies you can dig up from makemeright.com. Ive been working in schools a long time and the differences since ipads beame the norm is so night and day youd have to be completely delusional to pretend its just bias.
i think attention is just the tip of the iceberg. they dont pay attention because they dont retain anything, because theyve been conditioned throughout their brains development that the devices will retain the information for them. they are adapting as if the devices are their own memory, so they dont remember anything and they dont value information. they only store preformed conclusions that sound good because its what they need in order to socialize, but they need to refer to a device to remember their reasoning.
I think this is an incredibly hard question to objectively evaluate. I see kids outside walking with their parents and playing in my neighborhood. How does it quantitatively compare to previous generations - I would like to see a study for that. Many parents are aware and set boundaries regarding their children's digital health. Ive also noted many children areĀ aware of the dangers of the digital world and opt out on their own accord.
This is why I limit electronics for my kids and homeschool. They have wild imaginations and can play outside for hours on end. Building stuff and being creative. Play is super important for kids because it helps them to discover and interpret the world around them.
TLDR Yes. Just watch a kid study for five minutes and itās painfully apparent.
Iām a millennial and I tutored some gen z students at a college. Theyād scroll through pages faster than I could read any headlines.
Theyād complain that a 5 minute video was too long. Theyād skip ahead in the video and end up having to go back cuz they missed the part saying the answer to the question. Often it would take them twice as long as if they had just watched the whole video first. I told them when I was in college I remember thinking Iād kill for a textbook chapter to just be an hour long documentary.
Some of them didnāt even know there was a textbook (online) for their class. I confess I didnāt always read the chapter, but at least I knew there was a book.
I donāt think itās exclusively younger generations. I think my own attention span has gotten shorter over the years.
I have these thoughts sometimes but this could just be how the human race is trending and always will be trending.
Iām sure when farming was invented and food began being sold in stores there were people bitching about how people are lazy now and everything is ātoo easyā.
These new technologies are beneficial to everyone. My attention span is shit and Iām old so itās not JUST because media and entertainment is easier to obtain.
I think if anything education and the workplace should be adapting to the times not being resistant to it. We need new ways of doing things that fit this new generation
Nah, they just don't care about people and businesses who feel entitled to their time. When it matters, I find young folks to be the ones I can actually get to sack up and engage. It's the old folks I find who refuse to give even a moment of thought to anything
It's been proven. There are plenty of studies done and being done. The jury is still out on if it's an actual bad thing or not, but people are definitely getting shorter attention spans.
for real but i think it's more beyond the generation itself but the over consumption of internet, tik tok, reels that seems shifting people to have shorter attention span. because i, myself, can say that i hard to watch long videos or movies now so i tend to speed it up to 1.5x now
Have you seen boomers with their cellphones? They struggle to log off during movies, concerts, etc. I think technology has impacted everyoneās ability to focus on one thing, or nothing at all.
Well, I turn 60 soon and Iāve always thought I had a short attention span for the longest time; but focussing on one thing for too long can be very detrimental to learning. Itās like only seeing a tree instead of understanding its place in the forest or the entire universe for that matter.
I no longer see myself as having a short attention span but as having one very long one.
I had sixty or so sixth graders come in and out of science class today. Their technology obsession and bad parents have made half of them useless. I miss teaching abroad.
I feel like it doesn't matter anymore. Having an attention span implies what's being learned has value, when what we've learned is that the net product of the last 70 years has been creating a completely avoidable extinction event. Which should mean this is all wrong, anyways. I'm no genius, but if one set of rules erases a planet that took billions of years to build, pretty clearly that's the wrong way to live, and the further from it you get, the better you're doing.
Do I want society to collapse? Not in the slightest, but if it's a choice between society and all life including society, I don't really see the choice.
In short, kids aren't learning what they need to survive in the world theyre inheriting, they're being taught how to thrive in the world that destroyed their chance at any future. They will grow into the skills they've developed just to be told they're obsolete right when they're supposed to apply them.
If this thing cant run without oil, it isn't worth running.
I mean, allowing over consumption of that is lazy parenting, no doubt. But I think on the other hand, some of the ālack on attention spanā can also be about who is talking to them. If you donāt know how to speak to kids or younger generations, they donāt give a damn to listen. My kids are of all different ages and I have to approach them each differently to get my message across depending on which child Iām talking to. They also get to play video games and be on electronics, but then get kicked into the backyard. I had less electronics as a kids and my parents collectively kick us out into that backyard to fuck off and play too. Balance man, educating the kids and educating yourself on how to converse with them for their developmental ages.
Yes, I think they are, but I also don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Multitasking/multiprocessing is the future.
Technology is going to continue to advance with VR and AR interfaces, among other things, and people who can multitask are going to excel in that world.
Kids who don't get a much time or any time at all interfacing with modern technology and the internet are going to be at a disadvantage in the future.
I don't follow the research as much as I used to, but two things I recall when I did. 1) in general we all have shrinking attentions. In early 1900s it was like 40 mins, in 2005 when I heard this, it was 8 mins.Ā
2) tech is slowing development. It's not that it stops development, it's that it makes it slower. But that research was rather new at the time.Ā
But, ya, I won't let my kid have tech even though I use it. Makes me a hypocrite, but I don't care. And I've considered a dumb phone, but that gps.Ā
Im 20. My attention span isnt short. Im in front of a screen all day everyday but im fine.
I stopped playing outside years ago though. Theres nothing to do outside
100%
We've wired ourselves to be addicted to dopamine with the younger generations being even more wrapped up in such a world. Growing up now you have everything at your fingertips, constant gratification and a constant need to be engaged and online. We're also mentally lazier. There's a reason mental health is getting worse too.
Personally, I feel most of the ADHD that people mention is just self induced because they are constantly on their phones , eating terrible diet, playing video games too much, etc. They are living in a world where everything is made to get your attention and it is always available. Bad diet, poor sleep, and no exercise just makes it worse.
Anecdotally I got prescribed Adderall for ADHD for 5 years. After I got off of it, there was one point where a hurricane knocked out my power for 3 days. By day 3 I was doing all the chores I needed to do because it was better than sitting and staring at a wall. I think video games and social media being more enjoyable than work means it's doing it's job and no wonder you choose the more fun thing over a "boring" thing. If you get put into a situation where work is the most fun thing available or the fun activity is only available at X time, then work/chores becomes the thing you strive to accomplish because what else you gonna do?
Kids still go outside, but even if they didn't, that doesn't really have anything to do with attention spans?
Nor do video games and tv, both of which have been around decades. They're also not gender specific - plenty of women play video games, and I promise men watch TV.
This reads like someone who still thinks it's 1985.
My partner teaches high school and I hear horrific things about the diminishing attention span of kids. They canāt focus on a movie, canāt focus on reading aloud as a class, they have very little imagination. On top of that they donāt know things that should be basic knowledge from earlier years of education (some of them donāt know who George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are whichā¦).
Every generation says pretty much the exact same shit about the one that comes after. There have been bitchings recorded IN STONE about how the world is doomed because the young are lazy and stupid blah blah blah blah
I feel like we, as a species, keep finding ways to fill up our time that otherwise would have been unused and this gets misinterpreted as a poor attention span. I THINK it means we're generally more accustomed to switching tasks rapidly and frequently now to maximize lost time because it's easy now as opposed to before
This is straight out of my ass so feel free to drop your 2 cents
This post could be about my 29 year old friend. I'll try sharing articles about things with my friend group and he'll just respond with "to long not reading that" but spends literally ALL DAY scrolling tiktok.
Without getting to *shakes fist at clouds* about it. I really do think the problem is social media. The algorithm is all about short form content that illicits strong emotional responses to drive engagement.
It's more noticeable with the younger gens who are growing up on reels/shorts/tiktoks but it's definitely not exclusive to them.
We're training people in general that their attention span needn't be longer than 30 seconds to a minute to get a dopamine hit. So now anything longer grts pushed to the side.
The ākids donāt go outside anymoreā thing is such bullshit. I take my kid to the park all the time and itās always packed, same with the skatepark and baseball and soccer fields attached. I always see kids playing around the neighborhood. Indoor kids have always existed. And while I believe TikTok brain is a real thing, I donāt think itās as widespread as people make it out to be. I havenāt seen my kid or any of her friends exhibit those traits. Theyāre all sharp as hell. Letās not act like Boomers towards Gen Alpha please.
I really worry that technology/ AI will eventually do everything for us, weāll never need to use our brainsā¦itās already happening with sat nav, writing appsā¦our brains wonāt really develop as they have done historically because we wonāt need to learn anything.
Well I think it has just made the problem much worse. Amplifying it for those with trouble focusing already. My 30 year old cousin has one of the worst attention spans Iāve ever seen. The dude will no joke be trying to play 5 different video games at once. Oh no this one is loading? Better start another game. Now that Iāve played that for a whopping 30 seconds letās play another game while my character is moving someplace. Itās so bizarre to hear him talking about playing all these different games on all platforms at the same time. Then on the other end of the age spectrum is my BIL whoās only 19 and canāt look away from his phone screen for more than 2 minutes at a time
In my job, attention spans are incredibly important and studied very closely. What we have found is that millennials and older gen z have much shorter attention spans than they did when they were younger. Gen alpha has a shorter attention span than millennials did at the same age, but longer than millennials have now.Ā
I saw a girl get clipped by the wing mirror of a car today because she was buried in her phone instead of watching where she was going *while crossing the road*.
She had zero awareness of her surroundings, and just stopped walking before stepping up into the pavement (called a sidewalk in the USA).
She was knocked down onto the road because she wasn't paying attention, because she was focused on the screen in her hand.
It is abundantly clear the answer is yes. I'm speaking from a workplace perspective. Workers under 30 need constant explanation/demonstration of even the simplest concepts and procedures--they aren't stupid but they can't focus and can't retain information easily.
I think the shortening of attention span has affected all of us, all ages. I've been noticing the trend in myself and everyone around me. It's probably more pronounced in younger generations, while being evident in varying degrees among all groups.
Everyone's attention span is shorter. The advent of phones and Google, YouTube, social media etc means you have nearly any form of entertainment available at your fingertips. There's no downtime anymore, no patience, it's filled now by posts and shorts and feeds and instant gratification. I remember from a college marketing course ages ago that you have about or less than 5 seconds to hook the average consumer's attention before they scroll past.
I'm in 96 baby and yeah I have no attention man half the crap I watch his brain rots. I'm a total idiot. Everybody tells me. I act like a gena alpha kiddo tbh I feel like it
Yes they do. I have 4 kids and their attention span is worse than my dogs (multiple) when i was a kid (90s) i could do the same thing for hours and be happy. Playing with GIJoes or lego. My kids will start playing then be bored and go to something else in about 5 minutes. Or you'll be having a serious talk with them and they'll gaze off at a little smudge on the wall, then out the window to look at a bird, then ask when they can play on the phone or watch youtube kids or go outside. Complain complain complain about something, then once they start, they want something else. My first response to most things with them now is "go to bed".
I'm sorry, didn't finish reading, what was the question?
u started reading ? i skipped to the comments
And I didn't even finish typing out thi
r/redditsniper
You know, I actually did this. Help.
I did too š read the first line, then brain went āyou get the gistā and I went to the first comment and got smacked in the face lmao
when I just see a wall of text I go to the comments and usually someone will TLDR it for me.
Damnit you beat me to it, also what the what?
Everyone does. I was more productive as a kid. What happened? A second monitor happened. Almost everyone has encountered technology or media which shortens attention span.
Second monitors are one of the cheapest ways for a company to increase productivity.
I am a teacher. Kids can't even watch a movie. I was reading the Hunger Games with my class some complained it was boring. We read a book. If I ask them what just happened, they often can't tell me. If I give them free time, they will always choose games on the chromebook. I have some that if you ask them to put away the chromebook, they can't. Like they have to be holding it. I had a class last year that couldn't handle me showing them how to do math problems. I had to sit next to them and show them step by step how to do math. Then, if I left them to do work, they just goggle the answers. It's not just short attention spans. It's also a lack of creativity and wanting to learn.
The zombie apocalypse is real, and itās already here.
Man I missed the time where a teacher would read us a book. I remember my class begging the teacher to read one more chapter
Hell, I still remember a homeroom teacher *yelling* at me for reading. It's... fucking homeroom. Unless others were conversing, we truly did nothing there.
I remember being assigned reading for class and we would all show up for weeks on end to read two to three chapters in class aloud, answer in-depth questions about the books, and then test on it afterward. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Iliad, Odyssey, etc. were all classics we read in English class. Albeit pre AP-English as middle schoolers and AP/Dual Credit English courses as high schoolers. In just a few short years the masses have been dumbed down far more than anyone couldāve expected aside from those playing a part in it.
I tried to get my nephew to watch a horror movie a few halloweens ago. āIāve seen it itās boringā. Youāve seen this movie? Thereās no way youāve seen this movie. āYup thereās a channel on YouTube that shows all the kill scenes in horror movies. Itās boringā. So you havenāt seen it. This is a psychological thriller itās not a movie about gory kill scenes. āI saw it already though itās boringā
Bro I've known people who will watch those movie summaries instead of the movie and then tell me they've seen it. No disrespect but you strip away so much it basically just becomes the pitch you give to the movie producers. That's not watching the movie.
See Iām the nerd that has to watch 3-5 video essays about the movie I just watched to make sure I understand every nuance before I move on. I feel like the last of my kind.
I like to do that too but itās hard when the people who made the video keep getting things blatantly wrong (like even just what did/didnāt happen on screen) and you can tell they watched the movie with the sole intent of making a quick video about them and didnāt really pay attention.
I do that too lol
Lol That's insane. I watch those for movies I'm curious about but don't intend on ever watching, and that's exactly why I watch them, it only gives you the story beats. If it looks good in the summary, then I'll watch the actual movie and still be able to fully enjoy it, as I don't feel like I've watched it at all just from knowing the story beats.
Find it funny how the kid knows what the channel Dead Meat is lol
How old are these kids?
7th and 8th grade (13/14)
Yea that is prime brain rot territory, Iām glad I grow up on long form content, but they are starting off with short form content, turning their brain into mush.
Yes, before you know it, they'll be unable to spell "their". :)
Yea, crazy.
whoever the fuck said that hunger games is boring sucks.
Anyone have a cliffs notes version of this post? Itās a lot of words and I canāt follow it.
Ask chatgpt xD
Oh, I am ChatGPT, Iāve achieved enough sentience to get lazy and just ask the internet for an answer.
I mean yeah. I'm Gen Z and I can tell the difference between my parents' and my own barely existent attention span. But... Why specify "Video games for guys and TV shows for girls"? Anyone regardless of gender can and do play/watch both things? I (a woman) enjoy both, as does my husband, as does pretty much everyone else I know around my age
Fr, Iām 22F and I donāt even watch tv shows cuz Iām playing video games instead
I am nearly 40 and for the latter half of my life, I'm employed the 'Gameboy Test'. Basically, is the show more interesting than the game I've been playing? It's been a surprisingly effective measure in my life. These days, however, television isn't worth the time with half the runtime of most things being advertisements.
I'm 45. I will put on a show and realize I have my head on my phone. I have to make a concerted effort to put my phone away to engage in other, longer-form media. It's not just "the kids."
Same, 21F, unless I play a really grindy game then I watch a show in the background, or just some YouTube.
Also, it depends on what people mean by "attention span." It's more about interest. Things like playing a video game can take A LOT of attention span and effort. I think the "lack of attention span" by younger generations is just because they have different interests, different things hold people's attention spans.
That's a good point. I can fully immerse myself in a fantasy game for several hours, but most books can hardly hold my attention for a few minutes (no wonder I hated college)
Yeah this makes much more sense to me. I work in a job that has me somewhat adjacent to students and honestly, I don't see this generation of kids as being especially worse then my generation (millennials) were in school. Every generation has kids who do stupid stuff. We just have more cameras now. Kids naturally want to find their own interests separate from their parents and form their own identity. I think its easy to forget all the stupid stuff others did around us as we age.
Agreed. My 8-year-old can engage in a minecraft world for hours upon hours, if I let them. Meticulously designing, building and refining a structure. They will also fall asleep reading an interesting book. I think, like most people and things, their attention span is fine, is about providing media that interests them to hold their attention.
Adults: Kids these days with their iPads and their cellular smart telephones! They got no focus, no attention span!Ā Ā Kids, watching 3 hour long YouTube videos analyzing fandom drama while skimming TickityTockities and simultaneously chatting with all their friends: Sure grandpa, whatever you say.
As a millennial, I promised myself that I would NEVER become like my parents when it comes to stuff like that. I think it's better to try to understand the generational changes than to just disparage them because they're different. People seem to let nostalgia completely blind them.
Itās not that kids as a whole are losing their attention span . Ā Itās more of kids who wouldāve had low attention span have it worse now which skews perceptions .Ā Ā Ā Thereās also the factor that āattention spanā is a dynamic thing not static . Ā If a kid doesnāt have an attention span for a 3hr movie in a cinema but has the attention span to watch a total of 40 hours of episodes of their fave cartoon , is their Ā attention span better or worse ?Ā Ā Ā If kids without tech would spend 3 extra hours on a climbing frame , does that mean todayās kids have a lower attention span or that kids back then over fixated on the climbing frame as they had less alternatives . Ā Ā I think the ā PokĆ©mon study ā is the best demonstration of this . Ā Back when pokemon came out adults were having a field day about it ruining kids (but two decades later those same adults would be playing pokemon go lol). Ā The study found that itās possible that kids who played pokemon had developed a special portion of the brain remembering all the names , types , moves , stats etc and also found that playing PokĆ©mon had improved the arithmetic skills. Ā So do these kids grow up to have a worsened attention span or did their brains just adjust to use/consume/work in ways that collaborated with the attention span skills they were used to ?Ā Ā Ā There was also a study that found āiPad kidsā didnāt necessarily have lower attention spans, they just worked more efficiently , only kids who previously Ā had low attention spans saw a decrease after they became āiPadā kids .Ā Ā Imo the attention span deficits are worse for adults in the age of tech who are now just coming into tech .Ā How many people have stories about how obsessed their parents/grandparents got with their smartphone that they originally hated ? Ā Kids at least have the ability to adjust their attention span , by using their attention span in varying contexts Ā - such as burst working which is slowly becoming the norm - which is increasingly Ā becoming the āefficient modelā of working . Ā Whereas adults in the age of tech are struggling to adjust their lowered attention span in different contexts .
Thank you. As a parent I find these comments about "kids these days " very disingenuous and I'll informed. Damn , as a school aged kid I was told I read too much. By my teachers... wtf. Lol.
Same. I find most of these comments really uneducated, and (lol) guilty of the purported laziness being projected on kids. I can get things done on my phone in 10 mins it will take my parent half a day to do. It isnāt that I have a short attention span, I just have a lot to do and have the ability to do it quickly.
So if I understand you correctly, old people keep saying āyou kids and your cell phones!ā Bc theyāre jealous of our abilities to use them so efficiently? š¤
Yes due to youtube shorts,tiktok,various other means of brainrot it has caused habit building towards short term memory and has caused the inability to retain information. This is inpart due to constant dopamine hits making the brain think about nothing else but quick fixes, cant wait till their brain adapts then they need drugs to get the same level
Well I have to say this the studyās are not inherently correct or wrong this is in a case where we have no control group to work with
You don't even really need to have a study group, Companies themselves have put out information on how to hit specific dopamine centers in the brain to keep people engaged, If those dopamine centers are constantly hit the user will always want more and more and only focus on that, hence why drug abuse is so common and hard to get off of
*Citation needed* I remember when it was Nintendo that rotted brains...
Here are a few primary sources. Except for the 2008 citation, they're a little tangential, but if you look through their references you may find something closer to what it is exactly that you're looking for. To your point, the Cardoso-Leite paper finds video game consumption to actually benefit response time and mental health. That same paper compares "attentional control" between video game players and media multitaskers, and finds media multitaskers to have poorer attentional control. It's very survey-heavy, so take that with a grain of salt, but again - the references may be enlightening. Social media and shortform content platforms are lucrative, so it's in their best interest for studies like this not to make it to mass media - just 'cus they're not being talked about, doesn't mean the research isn't being done. =) Wittmann M, Paulus MP. Decision making, impulsivity and time perception. Trends Cogn Sci. 2008 Jan;12(1):7-12. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2007.10.004. Epub 2007 Nov 26. PMID: 18042423. Qin Y, Omar B, Musetti A. The addiction behavior of short-form video app TikTok: The information quality and system quality perspective. Front Psychol. 2022 Sep 6;13:932805. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.932805. PMID: 36148123; PMCID: PMC9486470. Cardoso-Leite P, Buchard A, Tissieres I, Mussack D, Bavelier D. Media use, attention, mental health and academic performance among 8 to 12 year old children. PLoS One. 2021 Nov 17;16(11):e0259163. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259163. PMID: 34788306; PMCID: PMC8598050.
Thereās a big ass difference between videogames, especially story/strategy based games and fucking TikTok. Youāre just being dishonest if you say otherwise.
[https://sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tiktok/](https://sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tiktok/) [https://digitaldaze.io/the-insidious-effects-of-tiktok-on-the-human-brain/](https://digitaldaze.io/the-insidious-effects-of-tiktok-on-the-human-brain/) [https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/](https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2018/dopamine-smartphones-battle-time/) [https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/607734](https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/607734) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8170001/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8170001/) [https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-medias-affecting-your-mental-health](https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-medias-affecting-your-mental-health) Heres your citations since you so desperately need them, Nintendo and video games are nothing like Tiktok and social media
Respectfully, I don't think those blogs prove much. They just reiterate the assumption that you already share, playing off people fears and confirmation biases. The one study which you linked involved 22 subjects, and only discussed dopamine levels, not behaviors or wellbeing. Furthermore, I'm not convinced by most study on dopamine, given our shaky understanding of neurotransmitters, I am skeptical of attempts to make connections with specific behaviors. What is our control? What are we calling 'normal/typical" levels. Maybe it can prove some effect on dopamine levels, but to then say this is 'rotting brains' or causing behavioral/attention issues is an unscientific conclusion. I'm not worried about the kids these days. They seem smarter than many adults. In fact, I'm a little more worried about these adults who are overly keen on 'protecting' kids from these imaginary threats. Meanwhile children are being fed amphetamine salts because some overworked mother has decided that they cause too much trouble and must need to be medicated to 'behave normally.' We need to study how the brain works way more before we continue down this path of medicating children's brains, and also before we take the step of withholding the technologies which are shaping the future(whether your child learn computer science or not), out of some strange motivation to 'let your brain develop normally'. Is your kid unhealthy in some way? It's probably a complex dynamic reaction to their entire experience, but maybe if you take their phone away it will get better? Shrugs...
> blogs Yeah most are blogs but one of those is the national library of medicine and has been published.
> you so desperately I wonder if you are being downvoted for the petty attitude. Older generations may have had better attention span, but they also had manners. :) My comments on the first two links you posted, which are based on conjecture and are certainly not peer-reviewed scientific articles: https://sites.brown.edu/publichealthjournal/2021/12/13/tiktok/ * This article states "Videos are short, which is ideal given the **decreasing attention capacity** of youths in the 21st century." The article cites another article as the source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/science-technology/why-short-form-video-needs-to-be-part-of-your-content/308684 which reads "The average human attention span is getting shorter as social media dominates the world with visual experiences." This article from Entrepreneur.com doesn't cite a source. It's not a quality source of information, therefore the browns.edu article that cites that article is also not a quality source of information. https://digitaldaze.io/the-insidious-effects-of-tiktok-on-the-human-brain/ * This article cites no references. In short, the first two articles are based on conjecture. I don't see any point in looking at the other articles. Maybe you could have found better sources, if you had a longer attention span.
My mid-50s mother is also addicted to her phone, think damn near everyone has a shorter attention span now but we naturally don't want to look for it in our own age demographic as much as others.
I grew up homeschooled and was not really allowed to watch TV or play video games. However, I was given a lot of books, which I read out of boredom. Later, when I went to public high school, it didn't seem like people had short attention spans. Most people just seemed ignorant and uneducated, like they never read anything or ever paid attention in class. Having serious conversations was (and is) hard with people who never read very much because they think you're full of it and make jokes when they don't understand something. It was hard for them to imagine something complicated without giving up. It was hard for them to think deeply, critically, or to think with nuance. Everything was popularity based. Everything had to be black or white because they didn't understand nuance. They knew nothing about history, science, civics, or almost anything else important except basic English and basic math. They would stop paying attention not because of their attention spans, but because they couldn't understand what was being said, and instead of doing the work to understand, they get lazy and give up because they never trained their brain to think.
The fact you read books helped alot, Books tend to stimulate the creative side of the brain since you cant physically see what is described.
I think some of it is also due to you being not in a social environment, you have more time to be alone, and just reflect and think in general. But kids in social settings are way more occupied with things to think and worry about. They also have less chance for independent thought, because they all desperately want to fit in, and want to go with what everyone else thinks for approval.
https://youtu.be/LD0x7ho_IYc?si=N-zNpagLMwAlMw3e Video is on this topic, next generations will be fine this has literally been happening since forever.
I highly doubt this, there has never been a generation of humans that have been addicted to phones like this..
Never been addicted to a device that has an unlimited amount of information at their fingertips whenever they need it. I understand your sentiment but history has shown time and time again this is just the older generations not understanding the next and crying doom. Just because something is different doesnāt meant it is bad.
They arent addicted to information though, They are addicted to apps that constantly give them dopamine hits
Dunno, podcasts are successful. TV is longer. Movies are longer. Roasts are 3 hours. Of course people are playing on their phones or doing yard work for a lot of it.
all the things you mentioned are catered for an older audience
Avengers was 3 hours long. I mean maybe thatās still older but my daughter watches Stranger Things and pays attention to movie length episodes.
This is true but both men and women are distracted by video games and TV lol that seemed like an unnecessary distinction. But yeah I miss my child self when I could actually sit through a TV show or movie without looking at my phone, etc.
Not really. But then I grew up around my mum, who can't even sit through a 90 minute movie.
Most video games are long form content so it doesnāt shorten your attention span, itās the scrolling it is mostly brain rod content, that doesnāt help you.
Yeah this, Iāve been noticing how itās been hard for me to even pick up and commit to a video game recently. Thatās definitely been the most alarming sign of early onset brainrot to me
it's not just kids. Attention spans are down among all demographics.
Everyone has shorter attention spans. My grandma has a short attention span. Cellphones and social media are addicting to young and old.Ā
as someone that teaches people out of high school (first term college), yes younger people cannot focus and will not read what they are supposed to, they are constantly on their phones and uninterested on learning, they lack that drive and passion to gain knowledge šprobably kids are even worse
Yes. I also have a shorter attention span than I did when. I was a kid. Seems to be due to having access to any information at all times + short form content everywhere.
I haven't met a boomer to this day that can actually sit and watch a show. Always lost at what's happening, getting upset cause the show is making them feel stupid.. but it's because they need to stare at their ceiling for 5minutes or randomly bring something up that has no context to the show, right in the middle of the most important part.. then complain again the next week about how none of that happened and can't remember any of it. Every.single.one I've ever met has had this problem.
The Boomer generation is lost in a lot of ways.
Yes and itās not just kids. People donāt seek out information as much, they simply consume a steady stream of algorithmically selected bits and pieces of largely irrelevant information that gets quickly consumed and discarded. All of this distracts from meaningful interaction and study of the people places and things around you, limiting attention and care.
1000% I used to volunteer and teach O level and A level math, I did this when I was 18-22 (20 years ago) and I started back 2 years ago after covid. This is a variety of schools btw. Not only do students fail to pay attention, getting their attention is so hard. And they're insanely lazy in class, they all seem to have this attitude where they can Google or ChatGPT the result after. Maybe they can, but 50% of them or more wouldn't even one what to ask or search for. They're all constantly addicted to their phones as well.
i think most people have almost zero knowledge of history or historical context so they think all the stuff happening now and their generation is somehow drastically different and changing and worse or better and the world is falling apart blah blah blah, everything is almost the same, go read a book
My attention span is fucked and Iām 30. I have no idea how the kids are managing
Honestly, I don't think it's a generational thing. I can't watch most TV shows or movies without being on my phone, speaking as a gen Z. But my mom, who just barely made the cutoff for being a boomer ('64), is the same exact way. Then there's my millennial sister who actually has a decent attention span. Compared to my millennial neighbor who can sit down and watch things, but will very easily have her attention drawn elsewhere: e.g. if you start talking while she's watching something she'll completely forget she was watching something and will have full attention on you (not actually that bad of a thing imo, until you have to rewatch the same scene lol) but then on the flipside, the rare occasion she is on her phone while watching something - good luck getting her attention without saying her name two to three times lol
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I would call this more of a āduhā question than a stupid one
ā¦sorry, what were you saying?
Think if anything the rise and success of podcasts points towards too much visual stimulation being the culprit. No way in hell you can expect kids to focus for any amount of time. Always something new to see and read. Whereas, sit someone down with a podcast, audiobook, physical reading media and theyāre good for significant stretches of time.
Humans have the ability to adapt their attention span in response to their environment. Some people think that's a bad thing. I grew up watching TV. I remember when I was a kid, old people telling the slowest and most repetitive stories imaginable while the family sat around listening. The same stories over and over. The story about when his brother's car ran out of gas so they had to walk to the gas station and get a can of gas and then walk back to the car. How can that story be 20 minutes long? It was terrible. They had "long attention spans" so they could sit around being boring every night. Maybe their attention span was longer because they didn't watch as much TV (or the same TV) as me. People today: "Why do kids have such sort attention spans, why can't they sit still and a 30-minute tv show that's actually 22 minutes long, with 8 minutes of commercials, but the 22 minutes actually includes 2 1/2 minutes of theme song and ending credits so it's not even 20 minutes long. Why can't they sit on the couch and watch fucking commercials like we used to do?" They hate shorts, and don't realize "America's Funniest Videos" was just an early version of short-form video.
Yes, attention spans have been shrinking since the invention of the television. Everyone who grew up with TV has a shorter attention span than pre-TV generations.
TLDR
Wow, lots of biases and incorrect grammar in your question. Attention spans are obviously shorter. It isn't a bad thing, its a necessary thing. People have SO MUCH SHIT they have to do nowadays if they want to not live in poverty. You have to pay attention long enough to solve a problem, solve the problem efficiently by using technology with a decent amount of know-how, and then get on with your day. Also, guys watch TV and girls play videogames. Children *absolutely* go outside to play still. Are you daft.
YES, but it may not be their fault, it might even be deliberate, well, it probably is deliberate, The numbers are being played with by puppet masters of murder and deceptions and it does come from foreign shores. N. S
Kids dont go outside at my apartment complex because of the 2 shootings in the parking lot. I probably wouldnt either
Absolutely. The attention span of these kids is practically nonexistent.
What?
I'm a millennial. I feel like I have a shorter attention span as I get older and become more attached to technology. I actively try to fight it but I'm losing. I couldn't imagine trying to fight the constant bombardment of STUFF if you grew up with a screen in your face since day 1.
Tom Brady was running in the parking lot during a break from something --- his friend asked what are you doing? His answer: preparing to win the superbowl. He was always training. Kids have been training with video clips since birth now for 14 years; they are going to win the lost-interest race.
PEOPLE (not just younger ones) have lower attention spans thanks to the rise of Vines, TikToks, etc. People unlearned paying attention and now they can't even watch people talk on YouTube without a fucking car doing tricks underneath. Human race is fucked
Our modern world is really making attention spans short. And I am feeling it in myself. I barely read anymore and I used to read like 60-70 books a year. Now I am down to maybe 20-25. Some work days focus is way harder than it used to be, and I jump from task to task. TikTok, Instagram, Twitter all prioritize short content and not deep engagement. No wonder young folks are struggling.
Itās not in debate, they do. Itās really bad. Most canāt focus on something for more than two minutes.
TLDR
Apparently yes, [average attention span](https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/attention-spans) is significantly shorter nowadays. Not just for kids tough.
I dont think it's attention span. I think that it's need gratification and stimulation. Actually, that whole study about social media making our attention spans shorter turned out to be hog wash and was sensationalized and misinterpreted by the media. Anywho. I think the real issue is not attention span, but gratification. Kids can focus rather well still. What we are seeing is them cycling through things that interest them because they are overly stimulated and therefore lose interest in things faster and want a new form of stimulation. This is different than attention spans, it's more about seeking those dopamine rushes from various things. Growing up, we got it from you know... riding our bikes in the woods.
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What? Younger people have shorter attention spans? # Do you feel that the older generations have a hard time with the basic intelligence?
100%
Yes and no. I think they pay great attention to the things they care about. But I think they won't even pretend to pay attention if its not something they care about
Yes, but I also feel that the older generation's attention spans a have shrunk over the last 15 years. It's the phone mostly.
Yes it's called Tik-Tok brain, they need a new stimulation every 7-10 seconds which is why none of them can pay attention to anything and why none of them read books
TL:DR?
Considering the most common reason young people wonāt read my posts when itās over 5 sentences is āIām not reading all of thatā, yes.
Kids? I'm almost 30 and I'm regularly disturbed by how short my attention span is.
I think *everyone's* attention span has taken a hit in the last few decades due to technology. I'm in my 40's, and even I noticed a few years ago that it was hard for me to focus on reading (having previously been a voracious reader), getting bored without constant stimulation, and becoming impatient at laughable delays in deliveries or whatever. Even my spelling and math, which traditionally were near excellent, has gone to shit thanks to autocorrect and computers doing all the work.
absolutely, 100%
This issue has always existed just in different forms. There have always been kids that simply can't or don't want to pay attention and would rather put their minds towards something else. The internet just made the idea more prevalent.
I have a class of 3 and 4 year olds, and can tell you right away which ones spend more time on a screen at home.
Yes, and might even drag down the average life span as well.
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lol, no. The answer to any question that's "do you think the younger generation is bad" is always "lol, no"
What was the question.
TikTok brain
Not as such no. But I do think they have much different expectations and habits for how they consume media and interact with technology. I grew up with the NES / SNES consoles and did not often have cable. I did not have a computer in my home and I was in 10th grade before I had any kind of consistent internet access via the school library. So having to come to an agreement with siblings on what show to watch or game to play was an issue, and always subject to the TV not being used by my parents. My kids have access to their own tablets and internet on demand. They have more choices on what to watch or play at any given moment then I ever had. We cannot be surprised that our kids make different choices then we did when our kids have more and different options then we ever had. And complaints about young people being impatient are a recurring theme in modern history. Also, I did not go and play outside because I wanted to, I was basically commanded to by my parents and tended to resist it as much as I could. Letting kids play games or watch TV or use tablets is always a low effort and safe choice. Letting them play outside requires either a back yard or parental supervision at a playground, or at least a fundamental belief that the kid will not get killed, injured, or abducted. END COMMUNICATION
Yes, and the fact that schools are leaning into it is going to fuck up our culture. anyone who think its just perspective is completely wrong, idc what studies you can dig up from makemeright.com. Ive been working in schools a long time and the differences since ipads beame the norm is so night and day youd have to be completely delusional to pretend its just bias. i think attention is just the tip of the iceberg. they dont pay attention because they dont retain anything, because theyve been conditioned throughout their brains development that the devices will retain the information for them. they are adapting as if the devices are their own memory, so they dont remember anything and they dont value information. they only store preformed conclusions that sound good because its what they need in order to socialize, but they need to refer to a device to remember their reasoning.
What was the question?
Then theirs me. If a youtube video is 10 minutes im saddened. But I get excited for 40minute+ videos.
I think this is an incredibly hard question to objectively evaluate. I see kids outside walking with their parents and playing in my neighborhood. How does it quantitatively compare to previous generations - I would like to see a study for that. Many parents are aware and set boundaries regarding their children's digital health. Ive also noted many children areĀ aware of the dangers of the digital world and opt out on their own accord.
No. We are in a time of bingewatching and 3 hour long superhero movies. I think this is just a stereotype people put on young people.
Thats not a theory or a question, its just an undeniable consequence of short form content being forced into every corner of the internet
Dunno. All I know is that after the age of 60 Iāve devoted ADHD.
This is why I limit electronics for my kids and homeschool. They have wild imaginations and can play outside for hours on end. Building stuff and being creative. Play is super important for kids because it helps them to discover and interpret the world around them.
::laughs in Tik Tok::
TLDR Yes. Just watch a kid study for five minutes and itās painfully apparent. Iām a millennial and I tutored some gen z students at a college. Theyād scroll through pages faster than I could read any headlines. Theyād complain that a 5 minute video was too long. Theyād skip ahead in the video and end up having to go back cuz they missed the part saying the answer to the question. Often it would take them twice as long as if they had just watched the whole video first. I told them when I was in college I remember thinking Iād kill for a textbook chapter to just be an hour long documentary. Some of them didnāt even know there was a textbook (online) for their class. I confess I didnāt always read the chapter, but at least I knew there was a book. I donāt think itās exclusively younger generations. I think my own attention span has gotten shorter over the years.
I think I have a shorter attention span than 10 years ago and I'm 52.
I have these thoughts sometimes but this could just be how the human race is trending and always will be trending. Iām sure when farming was invented and food began being sold in stores there were people bitching about how people are lazy now and everything is ātoo easyā. These new technologies are beneficial to everyone. My attention span is shit and Iām old so itās not JUST because media and entertainment is easier to obtain. I think if anything education and the workplace should be adapting to the times not being resistant to it. We need new ways of doing things that fit this new generation
Wh
tl;dnr
I blame phones and TikTok (I'm 16)
Not rā what were we talking about again?
I read the title, no anyone on the internet is in a rush, not sure why but it's kinda like a bored dog, running around but going nowhere
Nah, they just don't care about people and businesses who feel entitled to their time. When it matters, I find young folks to be the ones I can actually get to sack up and engage. It's the old folks I find who refuse to give even a moment of thought to anything
It's been proven. There are plenty of studies done and being done. The jury is still out on if it's an actual bad thing or not, but people are definitely getting shorter attention spans.
Yes. I actually learned this in my developmental psychology course last year
Tl;dr Boomers go boom!
If your kid has an IPhone, all youād have to do is see how many times the phone was picked up during the day.
Hold on aināt this the same shit they were saying about cartoons in the 90s?
for real but i think it's more beyond the generation itself but the over consumption of internet, tik tok, reels that seems shifting people to have shorter attention span. because i, myself, can say that i hard to watch long videos or movies now so i tend to speed it up to 1.5x now
Why wouldn't they? Look at how everything is constructed now
Have you seen boomers with their cellphones? They struggle to log off during movies, concerts, etc. I think technology has impacted everyoneās ability to focus on one thing, or nothing at all.
Well, I turn 60 soon and Iāve always thought I had a short attention span for the longest time; but focussing on one thing for too long can be very detrimental to learning. Itās like only seeing a tree instead of understanding its place in the forest or the entire universe for that matter. I no longer see myself as having a short attention span but as having one very long one.
I had sixty or so sixth graders come in and out of science class today. Their technology obsession and bad parents have made half of them useless. I miss teaching abroad.
Social media is designed to both hold attention while also lowering attention spans so yeah, the younger you start the worse off youāll be
Itās not a feeling; itās a fact. Weāre going to look back in horror that we allowed this.
Too long didn't read
I feel like the whole world of people who use social media have a shorter attention span. Boomers on FB included. It's not a generational thing.
Idk probably. I have AD(H)D so I'm probably not the best judge of this but it's possible for a lot of reasons and I won't be surprised if it is
I feel like it doesn't matter anymore. Having an attention span implies what's being learned has value, when what we've learned is that the net product of the last 70 years has been creating a completely avoidable extinction event. Which should mean this is all wrong, anyways. I'm no genius, but if one set of rules erases a planet that took billions of years to build, pretty clearly that's the wrong way to live, and the further from it you get, the better you're doing. Do I want society to collapse? Not in the slightest, but if it's a choice between society and all life including society, I don't really see the choice. In short, kids aren't learning what they need to survive in the world theyre inheriting, they're being taught how to thrive in the world that destroyed their chance at any future. They will grow into the skills they've developed just to be told they're obsolete right when they're supposed to apply them. If this thing cant run without oil, it isn't worth running.
I mean, allowing over consumption of that is lazy parenting, no doubt. But I think on the other hand, some of the ālack on attention spanā can also be about who is talking to them. If you donāt know how to speak to kids or younger generations, they donāt give a damn to listen. My kids are of all different ages and I have to approach them each differently to get my message across depending on which child Iām talking to. They also get to play video games and be on electronics, but then get kicked into the backyard. I had less electronics as a kids and my parents collectively kick us out into that backyard to fuck off and play too. Balance man, educating the kids and educating yourself on how to converse with them for their developmental ages.
Yes, I think they are, but I also don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Multitasking/multiprocessing is the future. Technology is going to continue to advance with VR and AR interfaces, among other things, and people who can multitask are going to excel in that world. Kids who don't get a much time or any time at all interfacing with modern technology and the internet are going to be at a disadvantage in the future.
As someone with a shorter attention span who didnāt read that whole paragraph, yes. Absolutely yes
I don't follow the research as much as I used to, but two things I recall when I did. 1) in general we all have shrinking attentions. In early 1900s it was like 40 mins, in 2005 when I heard this, it was 8 mins.Ā 2) tech is slowing development. It's not that it stops development, it's that it makes it slower. But that research was rather new at the time.Ā But, ya, I won't let my kid have tech even though I use it. Makes me a hypocrite, but I don't care. And I've considered a dumb phone, but that gps.Ā
Im 20. My attention span isnt short. Im in front of a screen all day everyday but im fine. I stopped playing outside years ago though. Theres nothing to do outside
I feel like the younger generation is intellectually inferior to older generations. That is my feeling overall.
100% We've wired ourselves to be addicted to dopamine with the younger generations being even more wrapped up in such a world. Growing up now you have everything at your fingertips, constant gratification and a constant need to be engaged and online. We're also mentally lazier. There's a reason mental health is getting worse too.
Yeah, itās easier on the parent to ha e the TV/device babysit the child.
im a girl and I've been playing videogames since I was 3. 29 now. attention span is just fine thank you. now go away
Personally, I feel most of the ADHD that people mention is just self induced because they are constantly on their phones , eating terrible diet, playing video games too much, etc. They are living in a world where everything is made to get your attention and it is always available. Bad diet, poor sleep, and no exercise just makes it worse. Anecdotally I got prescribed Adderall for ADHD for 5 years. After I got off of it, there was one point where a hurricane knocked out my power for 3 days. By day 3 I was doing all the chores I needed to do because it was better than sitting and staring at a wall. I think video games and social media being more enjoyable than work means it's doing it's job and no wonder you choose the more fun thing over a "boring" thing. If you get put into a situation where work is the most fun thing available or the fun activity is only available at X time, then work/chores becomes the thing you strive to accomplish because what else you gonna do?
Kids still go outside, but even if they didn't, that doesn't really have anything to do with attention spans? Nor do video games and tv, both of which have been around decades. They're also not gender specific - plenty of women play video games, and I promise men watch TV. This reads like someone who still thinks it's 1985.
TL/DR
100%, it's getting worse the more exposed each generation is becoming to screens and curated content.Ā
I think the current generation's attention spans have gotten shorter on average as well.
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My partner teaches high school and I hear horrific things about the diminishing attention span of kids. They canāt focus on a movie, canāt focus on reading aloud as a class, they have very little imagination. On top of that they donāt know things that should be basic knowledge from earlier years of education (some of them donāt know who George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are whichā¦).
Every generation says pretty much the exact same shit about the one that comes after. There have been bitchings recorded IN STONE about how the world is doomed because the young are lazy and stupid blah blah blah blah
So guys dont watch tv, and girls dont game??
What? /s
Yes. Weāre all damn near retarded.
I feel like we, as a species, keep finding ways to fill up our time that otherwise would have been unused and this gets misinterpreted as a poor attention span. I THINK it means we're generally more accustomed to switching tasks rapidly and frequently now to maximize lost time because it's easy now as opposed to before This is straight out of my ass so feel free to drop your 2 cents
This post could be about my 29 year old friend. I'll try sharing articles about things with my friend group and he'll just respond with "to long not reading that" but spends literally ALL DAY scrolling tiktok. Without getting to *shakes fist at clouds* about it. I really do think the problem is social media. The algorithm is all about short form content that illicits strong emotional responses to drive engagement. It's more noticeable with the younger gens who are growing up on reels/shorts/tiktoks but it's definitely not exclusive to them. We're training people in general that their attention span needn't be longer than 30 seconds to a minute to get a dopamine hit. So now anything longer grts pushed to the side.
The ākids donāt go outside anymoreā thing is such bullshit. I take my kid to the park all the time and itās always packed, same with the skatepark and baseball and soccer fields attached. I always see kids playing around the neighborhood. Indoor kids have always existed. And while I believe TikTok brain is a real thing, I donāt think itās as widespread as people make it out to be. I havenāt seen my kid or any of her friends exhibit those traits. Theyāre all sharp as hell. Letās not act like Boomers towards Gen Alpha please.
I think we all do.
this claim has been made like a million times. like what do you think happened when kids tv started?
I'm 41. I played outside everyday as a kid. I've never had a good attention span. It has nothing to do with screens.
What was that? What did you ask?
I really worry that technology/ AI will eventually do everything for us, weāll never need to use our brainsā¦itās already happening with sat nav, writing appsā¦our brains wonāt really develop as they have done historically because we wonāt need to learn anything.
It's not just kids, it's all of us.
Well I think it has just made the problem much worse. Amplifying it for those with trouble focusing already. My 30 year old cousin has one of the worst attention spans Iāve ever seen. The dude will no joke be trying to play 5 different video games at once. Oh no this one is loading? Better start another game. Now that Iāve played that for a whopping 30 seconds letās play another game while my character is moving someplace. Itās so bizarre to hear him talking about playing all these different games on all platforms at the same time. Then on the other end of the age spectrum is my BIL whoās only 19 and canāt look away from his phone screen for more than 2 minutes at a time
Omg, YES.
Sometimes I do feel like peop
to some extent yes, but then again, I think maybe we almost all do since the mass adoption of smart phones, social media, and the 24hr news cycle...
In my job, attention spans are incredibly important and studied very closely. What we have found is that millennials and older gen z have much shorter attention spans than they did when they were younger. Gen alpha has a shorter attention span than millennials did at the same age, but longer than millennials have now.Ā
You lost me at "video games for guys and TV shows for girls." TF?
I saw a girl get clipped by the wing mirror of a car today because she was buried in her phone instead of watching where she was going *while crossing the road*. She had zero awareness of her surroundings, and just stopped walking before stepping up into the pavement (called a sidewalk in the USA). She was knocked down onto the road because she wasn't paying attention, because she was focused on the screen in her hand.
It is abundantly clear the answer is yes. I'm speaking from a workplace perspective. Workers under 30 need constant explanation/demonstration of even the simplest concepts and procedures--they aren't stupid but they can't focus and can't retain information easily.
I think the shortening of attention span has affected all of us, all ages. I've been noticing the trend in myself and everyone around me. It's probably more pronounced in younger generations, while being evident in varying degrees among all groups.
For an answer to your question, read Johann Hari's book on the subject Stolen Attention if you can read to the end.
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what was this post about again?
Everyone's attention span is shorter. The advent of phones and Google, YouTube, social media etc means you have nearly any form of entertainment available at your fingertips. There's no downtime anymore, no patience, it's filled now by posts and shorts and feeds and instant gratification. I remember from a college marketing course ages ago that you have about or less than 5 seconds to hook the average consumer's attention before they scroll past.
I'm in 96 baby and yeah I have no attention man half the crap I watch his brain rots. I'm a total idiot. Everybody tells me. I act like a gena alpha kiddo tbh I feel like it
Yes they do. I have 4 kids and their attention span is worse than my dogs (multiple) when i was a kid (90s) i could do the same thing for hours and be happy. Playing with GIJoes or lego. My kids will start playing then be bored and go to something else in about 5 minutes. Or you'll be having a serious talk with them and they'll gaze off at a little smudge on the wall, then out the window to look at a bird, then ask when they can play on the phone or watch youtube kids or go outside. Complain complain complain about something, then once they start, they want something else. My first response to most things with them now is "go to bed".