Entry #2 Attention Spam?

 Kings and Queens of the digital world, it is your friendly neighborhood blogger Jason here with yet another entry! This time we dip our toes in the waters that are serious topics, and we will be discussing the attention span of Humans and wether it has gotten better or worse. 

They Got The Toons!?

Like everyone I discuss this with (golly am I exciting at parties) you may be asking yourself what sparked my interest into this topic and you wouldn't be wrong in wondering so. It happened an evening when I sat to watch SpongeBob with my nephew and the differences in the yellow sponge that I grew up with and the one my nephew is growing up with were outstandingly different. 

Now saying that SpongeBob is educational by any means is a little outrageous. But, the plot line our modern sponge followed was erratic and all over the place; while the sponge of the past had three missions to each story max. After watching the episode with my nephew I began to ask myself if our attention spans were getting shorter and shorter, or if I'm just getting older crankier by the day?

Technology

Now more than ever before the youth has access to millions and millions of hours of entertainment and education at the swipe of a finger and press of a button. Has this caused us to go from moderate attention spans to terrible attention spans? A good article that argues both sides to this is,
Is Technology Causing Our Attention-Span to Shrink? , by Jasmine Cundiff. In this article both an argument supporting that attention span has shrunk from 12min to 5min and an argument against this very claim is also made! A great point made by the author is mentioning the number of youth who have grown accustomed to instant gratification can no longer wait for things to get "better" as they are accustomed to things always being great and being great then and there and not in the future. 

In my practice blog, I make reference to Dr. Andrew Huberman, who studies Dopamine and the effects it has on the brain . The same study listed in that blog can come into play when trying to understand why technology and instant gratification have melted our ability to stay focused for prolonged periods of time. 

Good things, to those who wait

All things said and done, the studies are continually coming in and being updated as to whether the attention span of humans has become shorter or prolonged with technology. With that, there is another amazing video by Dr. Huberman titled, How to Maximize Dopamine and Motivation  to not be all doom and gloom which discusses how to use your dopamine to your advantage and it also talks about how you can use technology to help up your motivation as oppose to the opposite.


It was nice talking to you all yet once more and I look forward to our next interaction together! See ya later!

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