The digital age is destroying us by ruining our ability to concentrate

Old people are funny, they write stories like “Stoooopid …. why the Google generation isn’t as smart as it thinks” Everyone knows us kids can do 12 things at once, and do each and every one of them perfectly. “Chronic distraction, from which we all now suffer, kills you more slowly. Meyer says there is evidence that people in chronically distracted jobs are, in early middle age, appearing with the same symptoms of burn-out as air traffic controllers. They might have stress-related diseases, even irreversible brain damage. But the damage is not caused by overwork, it’s caused by multiple distracted work. One American study found that interruptions take up 2.1 hours of the average knowledge worker’s day.”
(Link stolen from http://www.tk421.net/librarylink/ )

July 23, 2008 by Blake Uncategorized 6

Chuck says:

July 23, 2008 at 2:30 pm

attention span
I’m sorry I don’t follow you.

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john lang says:

July 23, 2008 at 2:39 pm

Old People Won’t Seem “Funny” in A Few Years
I would like to hear your comments about these words: “Everyone knows us kids can do 12 things at once, and do each and every one of them perfectly.” when you “grow up.”

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Cyberpunk Librarian says:

July 23, 2008 at 2:58 pm

What?
I have a fantastically long attention sp…

Oh LOOK! New Transformers!

Seriously though, this isn’t just a technological problem, it’s an economic and social concern too. We’ve long been told that computers will save us work or that they will make our jobs easier.

You know, just like e-mail makes it easier to communicate (how much crap is in YOUR inbox), voice mail makes it easier to get in touch with someone (they too are never in when I call back), and on and on. Computers don’t save us from work, they merely make us work in different ways. As I’m writing this I’m in the middle of writing a desk schedule, monitoring my e-mail, looking at Twitter, and listening to Pandora. But I choose to do it that way. It gets a little hairy though when something goes down and I report it to IT… but I’m also working the front desk and now I have to help a patron check out, point out the bathroom, monitor the self check outs, repeatedly flip back to my e-mail to see if IT has fixed the problem I reported, answer the phone…

At that point, I have to do it that way. There’s no choice involved.

See I don’t want to work like that, but we now live in a culture of “do more for less.” The real problem is that now that we’ve learned to do more with less they’d like us to move on to doing everything with nothing. I remember the days when libraries, at least the bigger ones, had people there specifically to answer the phones. Not anymore as we can do that ourselves, can’t we?

Point is that yes, my attention span is as shattered as a shotgunned shot glass when I’m at work… but only because that’s the burden placed upon me and hundreds of thousands of other library workers nationwide. When I’m not on the job, however, I can concentrate on anything I want for any length of time I want. I can paint, read, compose music, or play video games for hours and I could care less what’s happening with my e-mail, or on TV, or in the news.

In other words, it’s gotten to the point where concentration on a single thing is something of a luxery.

Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes. Tycho (Jerry Holkins) @ Penny Arcade

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Walt says:

July 23, 2008 at 3:05 pm

Old people?
Funny start, Blake. What gives you the impression the reporter is old? Or that the story is off the mark…

I don’t think there’s much question that focus aids performance and understanding–or much question that, for most of us much of the time and for some of us all of the time, focus isn’t feasible.

GWD gets it right: “concentration on a single thing is something of a luxury.” It’s one luxury I absolutely insist on for my serious writing–and serious reading. Amazing how easy it really is to turn off the computer and catch up with email, oh, 14 hours later. (During the work day, of course, distraction is the name of the game.)

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LibrariAnon says:

July 23, 2008 at 3:21 pm

More handwringing over “kids these days”
I’m now convinced that before the internets and cell phones took over our lives, no one died in car crashes or any other distraction-related incidents, and that cell phones and internets are far more insidious than eating in the car, or playing with the radio while driving, or having screaming kids or loose pets in the back seat.

I’m also convinced that before the internets, all children and teens were known for their amazingly long attention spans and complete dedication to memorizing poems.

And I’m sure now that we’re creating a generation of people who don’t “connect” or value long term relationships, unlike those crazy hippies and their free love who somehow managed to make it all the way back to traditional relationships.

Please, let’s go back to the days of assembly lines, when one person could concentrate on the same minute task for hours, nay years, on end!

Worry over nothing is what’s killing us, and probably has been for a long time. Ha! Distraction is distracting people from worrying about real problems! Now that’s pretty funny, Horatio.

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- Cyberpunk Librarian says:
  
  July 23, 2008 at 3:40 pm
  
  Agreed
  Agreed and signed!
  
  Every so often you’ll see one of these kinds of statements where X is bad for children and/or teens because it kills attention span, promotes sex and/or violence, or whatever. The problem is that X keeps changing over the years, but there’s no change in the effects. X always causes bad things to happen when the values of X are:
  
  Jazz music, swing music, rock and roll music, rap music, dirty books, comic books, video games, radio, television, telephones, cell phones, the Internet, instant messaging, and so on.
  
  Before the days of those things listed above kids and teens never:
  
  Became violent, got defiant, rebelled, had sex, got into car accidents, questioned authority, possessed short attention spans, did drugs, made bad choices, became passive-aggressive, wore odd and unique fashions, or anything like that.
  
  Before the days of X, teenagers and kids were good, honest, hard working Americans with no problem distinguishing right from wrong. Riiiiiiight. Hell, adults have trouble telling right from wrong and we expect kids to figure it out?
  
  Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes. Tycho (Jerry Holkins) @ Penny Arcade
  
  Reply