Opus 2024-283: Attention Span

Do you remember when people began to realize that children’s attention span has been conditioned and molded by the television?  A segment between commercials was about 10 minutes.  And children were good for 10 minutes but after that their minds started wandering.  Of course it was much shorter time for some but let’s go with that general concept.

I think we may be in a time that is revising that attention span and driving it downward.  At least this is the case for me.  The current crop of YouTube videos are doing everything they can to get me to turn them off and move on.  I’m already reluctant to open any thing that goes more than 15 minutes.  If the person speaking hasn’t given me something worth listening to after two or three minutes I tend to back out and find something else to do with my life.

I recently tapped on what seemed like an interesting topic, from a person I’ve never heard of before, filled with hopes of learning something.  By the time we got halfway through and he went to his commercial presentation for his sponsor, I still wasn’t any closer to finding out anything about his topic than when we started.  Needless to say, I stopped it and went on looking for other amusing pastimes.

That takes me down to about 5 to 7 minutes. Is it just me or is this a cultural happening?

homo unius libri