If Attention Spans Get Any Shorter, You Won't Be Able to Finish This Headline
Wait, what was I talking about again?
For the audio version of this article, read by the author, go here.
Thanks to smartphones and social media, attention spans are in free fall, and I’m worried about the consequences for our society if no one can focus on anything longer than ten seconds.
I’ve started drinking peppermint tea because I heard it was good for a person’s digestion, and so far, it seems to be working.
Oh, sorry — sometimes I worry about my attention span too.
We all have so much to worry about these days: climate change, ultra-processed food, fascism, microplastics, A.I., and on and on.
When I was a boy, my favorite candies were Smarties and Fun Dip, which used to be called Lik-M-Aid, and I still much prefer sugar to fat in my sweets.
Sorry, I got distracted again.
Which is ironic because out of all the problems I mentioned before, the one that concerns me the most might be the “declining attention span” thing — because it’s what’s causing all those other problems. Either that or it’s making it even harder for us to ever solve these problems.
Are people really more stupid now? Are we living in an age of moral decline?
Eighty-three percent of Americans think so, and I confess, sometimes I do too.
I feel like I keep reading the same article: “[This Thing That Humans Have Been Doing for Hundreds or Even Thousands of Years] is Such an Unbearable Burden That No One Can Possibly Be Expected to Do It!”
Here’s but one of many recent examples: a woman who concedes all the research on how incredibly important “family dinners” are — but then says that it’s essentially impossible to expect a modern family like hers to do them.
And like virtually all members of Gen X, I sometimes find myself thinking unkind things about Gens Y and Z, such as: If everyone gets an A, doesn’t an A mean something completely different now?
And is it really that hard to, you know, make eye contact?
Then again, people have apparently always thought that society’s morals are declining — and not just in America, but all over the world.
Except not necessarily the Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. That famous quote of his mocking adults worried about the “corrupt youth” of Athens? Someone just made it up, probably in 1907.
And I bet it was a young person!
Wait, does that prove my point or contradict it?
As for the “Are we more stupid now?” question, surveys also show that people think that the internet and social media have made us all much more informed — a claim that I find so utterly outrageous that it just made me spit my Smarties and peppermint tea.
Anyway, “Have our morals declined?” and “Are we more stupid now?” probably aren’t even the right questions. Remember that article that went viral a month ago about how virtually everyone is now using ChatGPT to cheat their way through high school or college?
What if the issue is less about the “moral character” of Gens Y or Z — and more about a particular new technology that makes certain things really easy? Human nature being what it is, maybe most people would choose to use the technology.
Sure enough, a few days later, there was a great “Gotcha!” article in the New York Times saying exactly that: that college professors are obsessed with ChatGPT too, using it just as inappropriately as their students, to grade papers and the like.
(Naturally, there was also an article that said: “Just Let the Kids All Cheat!” — basically, Not Cheating is Such an Unbearable Burden, Etc., Etc.)
When I was a boy, every time we went to a restaurant, my mother would always say to the waiter, “Bring me a bottle of your finest cheap wine!” She was misquoting a line from the movie The Goodbye Girl, but she made it her own, and it was always really charming.
Except this time, this isn’t necessarily me being distracted again. These days, I think about my parents a lot.
My parents were born in 1929 and 1931 — children of the Great Depression. My mom’s dad died fairly young, and their family house was tiny. And until he was eight years old, my dad didn’t have indoor plumbing.
True, by the time I came around, my family was middle class. But I still don’t remember my parents ever complaining about anything. They had plenty of problems, like the fact that my mom died young-ish from early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. But for the most part, they both just accepted that life was what it was and carried on.
Then again, they were really involved in our community and had close ties with all our relatives. Back then, it seemed like almost everyone did that.
But why wouldn’t we? We didn’t have social media algorithms specifically designed to distract, outrage, and addict us.
It’s hard to explain to a young person how completely transformed the world is now — how much more impersonal it is, at least in America.
I won’t say people got along better before because, well, racism and sexism. But it does feel like people are more “tribal” now, and also way more self-centered, especially in America. Maybe self-sacrifice was never really “in,” but it was at least the thing we claimed to value.
Now we value self-expression. And never being bored, not even for an instant — not when we can get another dopamine hit. But, of course, it's our connections with others that make us happy, not a hyper-focus on ourselves.
Yeah, yeah, Old Man Yells at Cloud. But I really, really, really, really don’t think this is just my age talking.
To be clear, I like the conveniences of these new technologies too.
And we’re all still choosing to use them, despite their very obvious negative effects, like rapidly declining attention spans.
In that sense, maybe that annoying Billy Joel song is out of date — maybe we did start the fire. And maybe we’re not all that interested in putting it out.
So maybe it is a question of character, kind of.
Here in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where Michael and I are currently living, there’s a little corner grocery store down the street that had a pet parrot who walked around the produce section, squawking at all the customers. But recently, someone brought their dog into the store, and it attacked and killed the parrot, and now the whole neighborhood is upset that the parrot is dead.
This isn’t me being distracted again either. It’s me pointing out that real community still exists, and it’s at least as interesting as anything you’ll see on your phone.
See also…
My Father Just Died. Here's the Eulogy I Gave at His Funeral
What I Learned From Getting Trapped in Some Mud as a Kid
It’s a Lot Easier to Make Friends Outside of America
Travel Has Been Completely Transformed by Technology. Is That Good or Bad?
Technology is Driving Us All Insane
Brent Hartinger is a screenwriter and author. Check out my new newsletter about my books and movies at BrentHartinger.com.
I am very grateful to have lived for a good two decades before the internet (fka the Internet) took over everything. At the same time, I honestly don't know if I could handle living overseas as I do without the internet, particularly without Google Translate. I'm three years into learning Italian, and...ay yi yi, mama mia, it's a lot.
I wondered what happened to the parrot. I didn’t know!
I agree that we still have a choice on how we use technology and AI and should resist our own decline. But it takes a lot of discipline. Each morning when I pick up my phone I must decide: open Libby and read a book or check my other apps.