Tech Killed My Attention Span! (Help is Here.)
Do you have personal goals? Like, maybe reading more? Technology may just be working against you. Pay attention to this for 4 mins and you might just learn what’s blocking you.
Digital Deliria is here to provide a nostalgic, fun reflection of our digital age. It’s also here to illuminate how technology is changing our brains in ways we don’t yet understand. A colleague just shared a stunning article that has insights into this.
30 Seconds
By this point in the article, you are probably fading away. Why is that?
It may take roughly ~4 minutes to get the fulfillment of reading. To earn a useful takeaway. To gain a sense of community, or know something more deeply. Or simply enjoy a good feeling, if nothing else.
But why can’t we pay attention for more than 30 seconds?
According to a former Google employee, the tech industry has turned our attention into an economy. The fight for our attention means more competing content, and thus the creation of smaller and smaller bits of content.
It’s not a surprise then, that the “byte sized” goodness provided online has conditioned us to have a limited attention span (~30 seconds).
Why Read On?
I’m with you. I spent my free time consuming tiny bits of social media for years, like a goldfish in a vast sea.
Until I changed my mind. I reset my goals and rechanneled that wasted time into writing and creating this website.
This site’s goal? — simply to brighten your day.
Another very real goal — to reclaim our attention spans. For me: reclaim mental focus, diligence and perseverance for more than 30 seconds by writing. For you: help regain your attention span by reading for more than 30 seconds.
Now you know… now you’re in it with me. Welcome to the Big Experiment.
How Can We Regain Our Attention & Focus?
It’s a bargain — if you read, I’ll write, and we’ll both get some our attention span back as a result.
Once a week, for 4 minutes, read a story. On this site or anywhere else – just select something to READ. Consider it an exercise for your attention muscle.
Will you take on the challenge? Does it go to far to say, it might help save your minds?
Will We Win?
For now, web stats show that we lost the battle.
But every week is a new opportunity on this site, with every new bit of content posted here. Maybe then, we’ll win the war?
Write on… Read on…
And be sure to watch the video on this page (“The Attention Economy”). If you do, you’ll see how the technology giants are changing our behavior to their advantage. Time to push back and accomplish what we want in our lives! 🙂
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2 Replies to “Tech Killed My Attention Span! (Help is Here.)”
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Oldie here. I do not fall into that 30 second attention deficit. Those tid-bits actually annoy my sense of enlightenment. I’m not tempted to just click onto something that has no possibility of enriching my brain cells. Love to read! Keep spreading the word to your generation and those coming up.
Good for you!! From your words, I hope others take some inspiration to read as well!