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Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Something I need to improve: My attention-span
Neil Postman makes a good point when he states in chapter 4 that our attention span has drastically shortened. He mentions the Lincoln-Douglas debates and how the audience would sit and listen for seven hours. Seven hours! I am sorry but that is way too long for me to sit down and pay attention. I would most likely want to leave after forty-five minutes. His main point of starting the paragraph with the Lincoln-Douglas debates is to point out that individuals of the 19th century were able to sit down and listen for a long period of time because their attention spans were not ruined and corrupted by entertainment. The sad thing is that people today, and myself included, wouldn't mind going to the movies and watch three movies back-to-back-to-back, which would probably last about seven hours, because it is entertaining and fun. The people in the 19th century probably thought that it was enjoyable to listen to two people argue and debate for seven hours. Sadly, I can't even sit in church for more than two hours because I probably would not concentrate and begin to think about other things and even hop onto my phone. It is incredible to think about how entertainment and media has corrupted our attention spans to the point where we can't pay attention for long when people talk, that is if it is not entertaining or fun. What do you think? Have you noticed that your attention span is short and that you can not concentrate on people talking for a long time but would not mind watching entertainment or video games all day?
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I agree with you. Reading Postman's book really gave me a better appreciation for the early Americans. They really must have been great thinkers, readers, and writers to be able to understand and concentrate on such a long debate.
ReplyDeleteI have also noticed that I have a shorter attention span, but it only seems to be a big problem for me while on the net. For example, while I was writing this post, I was thinking what would have happened if Obama and Romney had had a debate for seven hours. I then remembered something about Beyoncé doing fundraising for Obama. I spent ten minutes reading random articles about Obama's fundraising. "It's for the blog," I told myself. Yeah, right!
With so many distractions these days, it's not a surprise that we no longer have the attention span people use to. It took me such a long time to read the books because I keep thinking of other things and just couldn't focus on reading. When I was reading that, all I could think of was, "Wow, seven hours? I can barely last an hour in class sometimes." But yeah, it's sad what has become of us.
ReplyDeleteI understand and agree fully with you. I don't think it's necessarily anyone's or anything's fault our attention spans are so short. Think about it, with phones buzzing at every text, notification, and email and our phones ready being so addicting, it's tempting for us to say something like, "Oh, I'll just sneak a peek" and wind up straying on our phones for a very long time. It's not just phones either. I do believe technology was the start of the decrease in our attention span but now EVERYTHING is a distraction because we've allowed ourselves to be distracted.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you as well. I cant even fathom siting there for seven hours listening to two people argue. Also your statement about church is spot on. I think besides class that's the longest amount of time I'm just siting/standing there listening but it gets quite uninteresting after a while. I wish I had the attention span of those people who could watch the debate for seven hours but I dont know if I would voluntarily attend such a strenuous event.
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