So a view I see a lot nowadays is that attention spans are getting shorter, especially when it comes to younger generations. And the growing success of short form content on Tiktok, Youtube and Twitter for example seems to support this claim. I have a friend in their early 20s who regularly checks their phone (sometimes scrolling Tiktok content) as we’re watching a film. And an older colleague recently was pleased to see me reading a book, because he felt that anyone my age and younger was less likely to want to invest the time in reading.
But is this actually true on the whole? Does social media like Tiktok really mould our interests and alter our attention? In some respects I can see how it could change our expectations. If we’ve come to expect a webpage to load in seconds, it can be frustrating when we have to wait minutes. But to someone that was raised with dial-up, perhaps that wouldn’t be as much of an issue. In the same way, if a piece of media doesn’t capture someone in the first few minutes they may be more inclined to lose focus because they’re so used to quick dopamine hits from short form content. Alternatively, maybe this whole argument is just a ‘kids these days’ fallacy. Obviously there are plenty of young adults that buck this trend.
Nothing has changed
I don’t believe anything has changed neurologically or psychologally in the last decades.
There have always been people who are more susceptible to consume “trashy” (provoking, easy to consume) media.
Once it was low-quality newspapers (a german band once refered to them as “fear, hate, tits and the weather forecast”, which fits really well!), then it was trash TV, then mobile games, and now TikTok and stuff. Some people are just attracted to flashy stuff and can’t get enough dopamine.
It’s just that the latter example is very new, and everything new is automatically bad, no matter what.
There have always been young people who read books, create art, video game, listen or create music, have hobbies, and so on.
BUT, something has changed:
One word: attention economy. Capitalism realized, that especially in combination with ads, you can create A LOT of money by making easy to consume content.
If a platform uses dark patterns (emotional or funny content, reinforcement, short content instead of longer stuff, flashy stuff, likes, endless scrolling, keeping you as long as possible in the app, etc.), it makes a lot more money with it’s users.
Years of algorithms perfectionized manipulating you and your attention span with supernatural stimuli (as mentioned above).
What to do with those informations?
Notice, how boring Lemmy, RSS-feeds, and stuff like that are?
After checking my posts for this day, I’m done and do something different, like cleaning the kitchen. Now, I’m on the toilet and don’t have anything else to do, and I have fun answering you :)
That’s how our devices should work. I don’t wanna be a slave, I want to own my device, and not the other way around.
Tbh, I’m grateful Reddit went downhill. A year ago I could never imagine nuking my account.
I spent my whole teenage and now adult years (15 - now) on that shithole, was super addicted and couldn’t spend 2 minutes without checking my phone, even in meetings, dates, and so on. It was just as bad as vaping for me. I knew, that it was slowly killing every brain cell, but “loved” it too much.
Thanks, u/spez ❤️ You killed Reddit for me and made my new “Reddit” (-> Lemmy, but with the same app) THAT boring for me I bought an e-reader now to read books instead😂
Yes I think you’re right. People haven’t changed, but the environment has changed - it’s continually getting better at manipulating us.
Lemmy does have a limited amount of content, but what it does have seems to be of higher quality. Which is perfect! We don’t need constant, cheap content.
I don’t think Lemmy has higher quality content, but it has less content which makes you interact with it to get more of your social media fix. I’ve seen this post a couple times passing by, and I’ve just come back to look through the comments because there isn’t anything new to see.
I wouldn’t agree with “better content” per se.
There’s just as much “spam” (links to articles, low effort posts, etc.) as everywhere else. At the same time, the content is waaaay better.
Karma
The fact that you don’t have to keep your karma in mind here let’s you speak more freely.
If I would say “Pineapple on pizza is disgusting”, I would have been downvoted to oblivion on Reddit. Here, they just ignore it, OR, don’t downvote and tell me why I might be wrong.
Back to Reddit: That, in fact, would give me two options:
- Delete this said comment, which would discourage discussions and make every community hive-minded, or,
- Stay strong to my opinion, and loose the ability to post to many subs anymore, because I now have -5000 Karma.
I always chose 1… Here, I don’t care. And this mindset has lead to many great, mind opening discussions.
Even on subs like r/Changemyview or r/Unpopularopinion this culture didn’t exist. No opinion was unpopular, merely “weird” (like “I like my socks wet” and stuff). Every “unpopular” opinion was popular on Reddit. And elsewhere, everything was a fight.
On this site, disagreeing is only for useful discussions I had/ read too. It’s almost like an “anti-echochamber”, and I love it! I love my opinions being challenged.
One more result of that is that the upvote/ downvote function went from “I agree/ I find that funny” or “This is against the subs opinion” to “This comment is worth reading for others and adds value. OP put work into it”. WHICH IT SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE BEEN! This button isn’t for disagreeing, it’s for FILTERING out trash!
Algorithm
Also, there’s no algorithm. On many other social media, post that make you laugh (-> mostly dumb stuff or reposts) or promote strong emotions (mostly aggression and tribalism) got promoted.
Here, it’s somehow totally random. There’s so much “boring” stuff on my trending page. But, I’ve discovered many cool niche subs here I wouldn’t have otherwise. I didn’t know so many people were into collecting space rocks and model trains for example 😁
E.g., my own gourmet-mushroom-growing-community got super many views and comments from people who’ve never heart of that before. That was unbelievable!
On the other hand, there’s sooo much useless information, some opt-in filtering/ algorithm wouldn’t be bad tbh. But many say that about account karma too, which is a way smaller feature, and that has repercussions too (see above). Something like an algorithm would be HUGE, but also maybe hugely bad for this site?
Idk, tell me! Be controversial! 😁
Yes the karma system here is way better! It definitely reduces the hive mind mentality.
I don’t think we need any kind of algorithm though. That would only serve to make the popular stuff more popular and the niche stuff gets buried. Maybe if I could personally filter out communities that I’m not interested in?
Your concerns about the need for an algorithm is correct.
But, instead of “personalized content”, users should be able to make their own algorithm, with subscription and filter lists. I use uBlock Origin to block content you named as ‘tribalist’ (good take!).
But maybe I’m more sensitive. I don’t find Lemmy boring, I can lurk here for hours. So I also blocked the ‘prev/next’ buttons just to stay on the first page (I’m an eccentric person).
Good article.
Getting off reddit was one of the best things I’ve done for myself in years. I’m still fairly active on lemmy thanks to having a lot of free time at work but I’ve also been reading and making an earnest effort to enrich my mind again. Feelsgoodman
Same here. I have nothing of value to add.
What changes did you notice in your thought patterns when you withdrew from Reddit?
What books are you into and would recommend? Is there a community here?
I noticed that I take a lot more care and attention on my posting on lemmy in general. The conversation can be much richer than it is on Reddit and I feel that it’s worth my time to sometimes write several paragraphs, cite sources and really dig into a topic. Be it star trek lore, political theory, or the weather. It’s nice to have a space where thoughts can be challenged and discussed without it devolving into a shit slinging competition. I also don’t find myself on lemmy much when I’m not at work which has led to me being more present in my home life I’ve been able to get more done around the house. I have terrible ADHD and it came as a surprise how much easier it’s been, it’s still difficult but it’s better. I find I’ve just slowed down a bit and been more attentive overall. I won’t attribute that wholesale to reddit as I’ve been making other lifestyle changes lately but being online too much was certainly an issue and it’s made those other changes easier by virtue of having more time.
I’m on a big political theory bend right now as far as reading goes. I’ve read the conquest of bread, mutual aid, the state and revolution, bullshit jobs, some of capital (it’s boring as fuck lol), the dawn of everything, some short writings from Malatesta, and a few others I’m blanking on right now. I’m also working my way through the Lord of the rings as well. I plan on revisiting some old favorites down the line too.
As for recommendations, I can’t praise The Dawn of Everything enough. I lumped it in with politics earlier but it’s really not (in the traditional sense). It’s co-written by anthropologist David Graeber and archaeologist David Wengrow. In the book they attempt to go through the historical, anthropological, and archeological record to construct a grand narrative for the development of human society. They offer some very compelling evidence against the old myths of the noble savage or primitive barbarian that have been the dominant theories of human social development since the late enlightenment. It’s truly eye-opening and fascinating. Also, if you haven’t read the Lord of the Rings before, do yourself a favor and give it a go, you won’t regret it.
There are a few book communities here, but I’m blanking on which instances they’re on at the moment. I’ll have to go through my subscribed pages and come back to link them
This is exactly why I love Lemmy. I noticed it within hours of quitting reddit. The sheer volume of content on Reddit, plus the algorithms, kept my attention for hours. Lemmy just isn’t that big and probably 60% of the content I see is in swedish, gerrman, or dutch, which I can’t read, so I spend like 15 or 20 minutes max here and then go do something else.
I can relate so much, but instead of only Reddit stealing my time it’s a bunch of other things as well. Mostly gaming and random series.
But yeah I remember going thru 8th grade by scrolling reddit all day, school was boring af. Now I only use Lemmy on the bus (rn) or checking for replies before I go to sleep.
I learned very much from yall, and I’m almost convinced reading is worth it, idk what to start reading tho… Maybe a future tale
If you like fantasy, Redwall is always a fun read. It might be a bit of an easy read though.
are you trying to scare me of with “easy read”? I might read it, idk, as I said I’m very on the edge…
But don’t mind my personal shit, thanks for the recommedation!
I didn’t buy an e-reader I just installed Cool Reader which is free. But the result is the same. I probably read five books a month now where before it was probably less than one a year.
I really recommend trying an e-reader in your local shop or borrowing one from a friend if you can.
I’ve read books on my phone for about a year now, but the “feeling” isn’t right there, and I somehow get distracted a bit.
I’m really a fan of “a device should do one thing, and that really good”. I bought a camera, a reader, and so on because of that. My software habits are the same. I have dozens of simple apps on my phone and PC, and all of them serve one single purpose. Look up the UNIX-principle if you’re interested in more. (Sorry, this site is full of Linux-circlejerk 🙃)
- The camera makes 10x better photos than every top tier smartphone (+ is a fun offline hobby that improves your skills!)
- The reader gives you a display that’s super easy on the eyes, lasts for weeks on battery and doesn’t distract you.
- My smartphone is only there for communication (Lemmy, messengers, calls) or if I have to quickly look up something on the web
Separating everything really also separates your mind, giving you peace.
It’s minimalist and maximalist at the same time.
I’m sort of on the same wavelength. You can get a pretty powerful phone for cheap if you don’t care about camera quality. I mostly only take pictures when people ask me to so I don’t care about camera quality. But if you do your research there are cheap Android phones with some of the latest snapdragon processors or whatever for cheap. Latest Samsung and iphone cost what they do because of the camera mostly. I don’t need a camera so I get cheap phones with strong hardware and basic cameras. Currently using a Motorola.
I will look into getting an e-reader though. Plan was always to spend less time on my phone. Photography doesn’t interest me. I’ve tried to get into it because hot girls are into it but I can’t even fake it.
RSS feeds have made my attention worse. It almost becomes a chore to get my bearded to zero content unread. I also shove my YouTube subs and podcasts in there though.
Yes and no. I think it makes sense when you separate it a bit more.
Instead if throwing everything in one list, create profiles/ categories/ folders/ whatever.
I use it mainly for the public state media in my country. Those “media hubs” are a horrible UX (despite being insanely expensive!) and to fix that I add some of their shows into my RSS, so it works similar to the YouTube subscription box, because somehow german media people are still behind 30 years… In that way I fix that shit for myself because they can’t…
I don’t use it for example for news or YouTube, since both have a timeline already built in.
Tldr? /s
What makes you think language has improved to the point where 10 minutes of reading now conveys the same amount of info as 1 hour of reading in 1980?
Try reading a book for 5 hours in the city surrounded by your devices, and try doing it in nature with no devices around you. We didn’t change, but our world did and we adapt with it. Of course, things wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t people getting unimaginably rich by trapping your attention.
It’s genuinely more effective in today’s society to skim read and give up if the content isn’t good. There is so much time wasting bullshit, misinformation, ads, and scams put in front of us. But we don’t have a great defense mechanism, so our attention spans have suffered alongside the quickening of our skepticism response.
