Pro: Technology Creates a Shorter Attention Span

TL;DR
By Mary McChesney-Young

Just as I started reading a piece of research to prepare for writing this entry, I had to move to a different location in order to find an outlet to charge my laptop's battery. I found an isolated hallway and sat on the floor, plugged in my computer... and quickly discovered that there was no wireless signal back here. YIKES. How will I check my e-mail and IM with my friends and go on YouTube and use Google and... Riiiight, I'm supposed to be reading, anyway.

(Too bad it's so hard to concentrate.)

...

Okay, it's the next day now. I wasn't able to actually sit down and focus long enough to add anything to this (I got too distracted by my other essay. And ONTD. And the TV.) Let's try this again.

In the past, when using traditional media like paper and pens, or even typewriters or computers before the dawn of the Internet, focusing on one subject or endeavor at a time was easier because there were fewer opportunities for distractions. Now, sitting down at the computer to work on a project means being able to access millions of websites, and browsers' tabbing capabilities mean that a person can have as many as twenty pages loaded in one window, easy to flip through so you never have to stay on one page for longer than a minute before moving on. IMing, text messaging, and Twittering all focus on getting short, often abbreviated messages out to others. Kids these days (*waves cane around*) are spoiled by our culture of instant gratification and perpetual entertainment. As soon as something takes longer than a minute to load or ceases to be entertaining, it loses value. Although not much research has been completed on this subject, it seems reasonable to worry that regular use of the Internet and other technologies might cause children (and adults) to develop an inability to concentrate on a given task for an extended period of time.

In the Atlantic article, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, Nicholas Carr postulates that changing technology, including the Internet, has changed the way we think, and particularly the way we read and absorb information. As an historical example of this happening, he points to the invention of the mechanical clock:

"The clock’s methodical ticking helped bring into being the scientific mind and the scientific man. ... In deciding when to eat, to work, to sleep, to rise, we stopped listening to our senses and started obeying the clock.

"The process of adapting to new intellectual technologies is reflected in the changing metaphors we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking of their brains as operating 'like clockwork.' Today, in the age of software, we have come to think of them as operating 'like computers.' But the changes, neuroscience tells us, go much deeper than metaphor. Thanks to our brain’s plasticity, the adaptation occurs also at a biological level."

And in the book Everything Bad Is Good For You, Steven Johnson compares the number of plot lines in TV shows from before the 1980s to the number in more modern TV shows, claiming that the significantly higher number today shows a complexity which was previously missing (page 72). While in Johnson's opinion this shows that audiences today are being challenged to think in more complex ways (which is a good thing), I have to wonder if this doesn't also contribute to shortening attention spans, given that obviously the scenes devoted to individual plot lines must shorten in length to fill the same time slot.

(The title of this entry, TL;DR, is an acronym often used by people online who are too lazy to read a full blog entry, e-mail, article, etc. It stands for, "Too long; didn't read," and I think sums up nicely the attitude that Internet use can foster.)

Two examples of my favorite online distractions: I Can Has Cheezburger and Passive Aggressive Notes.com.

(Read the opposing argument)