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Is our attention span getting shorter?
This humorous video may show us what the youth of today's technological world may be becoming. I, for one, have noticed myself getting impatient when something takes more than a couple of seconds to load. What will happen when we apply this impatience to other aspects of our life? This society is following exactly the path of Postman's predictions. They are so used to being entertained that the maximum wait time they are willing to wait is five seconds! Five minutes is unheard of. They appear to have an aversion to human interaction and actual work. The children were desensitized to bloodshed because of television. They have become physically weaker, unable to ever have to even pick up something as big as an iPhone.
Is this what our society will become? Terrified of work and of not being entertained? Will future generations be taught that one must have what they want now, and never later, or it isn't worth it?
This video shows a more but at the same time less extreme future then what Huxley envisioned. Do you think that this is a more likely scenario then Huxley's. I believe that it is a modern representation of what Postman explained about television’s effects.
Caleb Douglass
Caleb, sometimes I find myself facing the same problem. My attention span tends to be somewhat short, especially when it is something that bores me. Ironically, this problem came to my attention couple of years ago. I was watching Fairly Odd Parents. Timmy Turner was at school when one of the adults exaggerated about a kids attention span; saying that it was only a couple of seconds long. Timmy then proved the adult’s point by spacing out and saying “what?”. This made me laugh at first because of how ridiculous it sounded, but I still continue to remember it. Like you, I also get impatient when a video or site I am on takes a while to load. Sometimes when I miss what someone says or something awkward happens, I think, “It’s okay, you can just rewind.” Then I realize that it is stupid and I cannot rewind real life. So, I do agree when you say that television’s effects today are a “modern representation” of Postman’s view.
ReplyDeleteActually, I find myself the same way. This was especially the case in Mr. Rodriguez's class (which is a prime factor in why i had a constant "D" in the class....well that and I needed glasses). I seem to "space out" after about ten seconds of the conversation starting. Like, I may seem like Ii'm listening to whatever you have to say, but then I'll remember that new song by Tame Impala and play it in my head, followed by more Tame Impala songs. I never thought that it could be technology's doing though. I just thought it was because I always happened to be thinking of something right before the conversation.
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