Is Our Attention Span Collapsing?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Have modern humans lost their attention span? I share some definitions and ideas. Including the frame we need to answer this question.
Go to my main channel
/ vladvexler
You can now support Vlad's work on Patreon!
/ vladvexler
Support Vlad via PayPal
www.paypal.com...
![DDG & G Herbo - Nosey [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/I9Ra0Zc2NlQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Go to my main channel
ruclips.net/user/VladVexlervideos
You can now support Vlad's work on Patreon!
www.patreon.com/vladvexler
Support Vlad via PayPal
www.paypal.com/paypalme/vladvexler?country.x=GB&locale.x=en_GB
It's always a combination of things happening. Such as the last 5+ years with everything that has happened politically which only emboldens the maga kkklan to spread their ignorance and lack of humanity.
They are literally incapable of attention span because of the fact they have issues stemming from lack of brain development, as the science clearly points out.
Conservative vs Liberal brain, a twenty year study which involved more than 140.000 people discovered long term positive or negative influence will change the size and activity of certain sections of the brain.
They also discovered Conservatives will have a lager more active Amygdala, creating too much fear and aggression, fight or fight response.
Along with a smaller less active Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Cingulate Gyrus, drastically effecting their capacity for processing critical thinking.
When both are opposite in a Liberal !
Everyone else , Liberal and progressives are either fed up and give it all a brake, while some of them are perhaps a little too involved and not themselves when debating current political issues out of frustration.
Attention span, or even the ability for Liberals and Progressives to think in a rational way are very much effected by repetitive messaging.
Repetitive messaging over a lifetime is actually quite dangerous to society and in fact the human race.
It can and does brainwash people, but it will also make them mentally lazy on issues Liberals and Progressives should understand as being wrong or even quite irrational.
A perfect example of repetitive messaging making Liberals and Progressives think in very irrational terms is the fact almost literally no one is talking about or has even began the conversation of outlawing dangerous fascist extremists from running for office.
Which there is totally and absolutely no logical or sane argument to continue allowing mentally unstable dangerous fascist extremists to run for office ,and an almost endless amount of reasons to outlaw mentally unstable far right fascist extremists.
In fact one can make the argument of flat earthers insane beliefs are not quite as insane as a Liberal or progressive arguing until they are blue in the face saying dangerous fascist extremists should have every right to run for office.
This is clearly not at all the case.
Same thing happens when debating the future of currency as sometimes even the most Liberal or progressive individuals cannot initially understand the concept of a world dollar, and make very Conservative arguments against it.
Even though they have figured out a perfect plan that would be so much more practical fair, secure, and even eventually curve war or perhaps eventually eliminate it.
Point is everyone, even Liberals and Progressives are very much effected by repetitive messaging.
And people believing irrational things makes then at times very lazy mentally effecting their attention span.
tRump, George Floyd horror, COVID, January 6th in the US, and now the situation in Ukraine is why everyone is frustrated with the situation and will naturally have a much smaller attention span.
If you don't get to the punch line within the first 30 seconds you are toast...unless you are one of Vlad's gang, then you are in it for the duration!!!
Have a couple of your questions still logged for a long form Q&A. Haven’t forgotten!
Vlad equals substance yet this is the first time on this channel I set the playback speed at 1.50.
@@Vbluevital 1st time viewing him, but changed to 1.50 before I got bored and read your reply comment !
(I can pause YT at-will and type the above, then get right back into it...)
@@joeteejoetee Hope you listen to Vlad often. He's the best for insightful commentary.
I deleted Tiktok (Douyin) today. I just got distracted by it, before sleeping etc. Waste of time. I put a book on my nighttable instead, so if I have trouble falling asleep I'll rather read...
Attending without comprehending... in some contexts describes the phenomenon of "learning". Whether it be learning entirely new field of study or simply "learning to appreciate", or even "learning that you don't appreciate or enjoy" something. The key being, one way or another, there must be an end phenomenon, a reward if you will, to motivate the individual to want to expand their horizons enough to take on the new challenge.
I think the fundamental change in modern society is the availability of information. How does this apply? It impacts the reward, dilutes it if you will and in doing so, also dilutes the motivation. With access to only a limited amount of "content", there is a stronger motivation to expand beyond one's comfort zone to satisfy intellectual curiosity. Then even the search and the learning process itself becomes a learned practice. With unlimited information available, there's an unlimited supply of new stimulation, which reduces the motivation, or the need, to stray out of one's comfort zone for new stimulation. In fact, the technology uses algorithms to reinforce your staying where you are.
There's always a lowest common denominator. In every genre, in every field. That represents the least motivated to grow. It is always the majority. Progress is never driven by the majority. Innovation, by definition, is not a tool of the majority. Profit motivations cause providers to feed the majority to maximize their returns. Look at music over the decades and you'll see this in effect in one of the most obvious examples. I could go into a total side bar dissertation on how the targeting of this lowest common denominator took exponential flight in the 1980s which lead to the rampant collapse of decency that we experience today... but another time.
Obviously, a topic I've put a lot of thought into for quite some time. I found your analysis, as usual, very thought provoking and I wish you great health and all the best, sir!
Perhaps the effect is context dependent. As a solicitor I can concentrate for 10 hours on a document. Bur in social media I can be quite different. Comprehension seems a good benchmark as you suggest. But in a world where everything is available all the time, sustained commitment and perseverance become hard work.
This is very interesting. I don’t spend too much time on the internet. I do find it very distracting at times. I’m actually going to take a break for a few months as I will be very busy and will offload all apps including YT. I find when I’m scrolling my attention span is shortened compared to days I put my phone on silent and I’m a lot more productive.
I have theory regarding social media and collectives attention span decreases as "progress" trough words the unknown 5th gen social media ( I consider message boards and what was there at that time 1st gen, hi5 and what ever 2ed gen, and were it all started to go down hill is from 3ed gen fb, instagram... the 4th gen meaning tick-tock has reduced it in my view to les then 3s). When I red William Gibson and Neal Stephenson I both amazed how accrued they depicted (in a exaggerated way) this dystopia we live in and can't help but be puzzled and scared regarding the 5th gen (AR/VR augmented social media), even if it is maybe 10-20 years from now.
Please also talk about metamodernism and transhumanism, maybe hedonism, i feel they will be more and more relevant
The recent burgeoning of ADHD diagnoses is interesting. Is it that an increasing number of people have a deficient executive function and so reduced attention span, or were they always there, undiagnosed and are only now being recognised?
Thank you Vlad but I did doze off after 3 minutes.🤣😀👍
The speed of content feed is too fast.
We can't even catch up if we tried regurgitating.
Our brains simply wasn't ready for information boom. Maybe in 5 generation or more.
I made a boring animation that doubles as an attention span test. It's the same length as your video,
Comment the timestamp you quit watching and see how you compare to others.
Had to shut the video off after about 30 seconds.. Bored out of my mind!
(Just kidding..) best wishes dear Vlad!
💛
Wow 17 minutes. Could you not summarize this in a TikTok for me?
I have ADHD, so never had a good attention span
Oh, sorry. Were you saying something?
Vlad, I enjoy your content and you are fast becoming my go to channel, I grew up in an extremely strict religious family, we had no television, no popular radio. We were expected to be able to discuss intelligently the topic of the sermon hours after the event from a very young age. We read books and had books read to us and we entertained ourselves with our own imaginations. We learnt skills like needle work from the age of three. I do not subscribe to my parents beliefs or philosophies and in many ways I was unprepared to face the world and be a part of it. However I do possess the ability to pay attention and to learn and grow within myself in a way that many others do not. I see how todays world and all the popular things in it affect my children and I regulate the kind of content they consume. It is obvious to me that they need to practice working the “muscle “ for effective attention and this is clearly demonstrated in their behaviour and ability to follow instructions etc in ordinary life after engaging in different types of entertainment. I believe many parents are not regulating what their children consume consistently enough for the next generation to have strength in this skill set. This worries me. I believe this will have an enormous impact in our future, in what way I am not sure.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and. teaching us. Provoking us to think and digest more.
I didn’t even realise you had a philosophy channel, Vlad. Immediately subscribed :) You made me think about my personal attention span, and I find that it varies. Sometimes I want some piece of information quickly, on other occasions I just want to be entertained. That’s when I want news articles to be condensed, videos to be short, unless it’s a particularly good film. It’s different when I’m in learning (or in marvelling) mode. Then I’m ready to listen, to look without comprehending. A 21st century opera, a language I don’t speak, a piece of art, a challenging book, a demanding lecture: I can look, listen, read, gaze for hours on end and even enjoy the experience.
Never heard of MrBeast before. Well 😂 Not entirely my cup of tea. That’s why there’s other creators on YT ;-)
Thank so much for sharing!!
the important question, to my mind, is whether MrBeast has discovered Vlad yet?
I wish these videos were shorter.
Lmfao, nice
Same for your comment!
That this is the highest voted comment answers the question raised and not directly answered to by Vlad. So, here we have it...
😂😅
Lol
I know that you are aware that there are some of us whose minds seem to work in a scattered manner. I am one. Even as I worked on my doctorate I was always reading piecemeal, walking around as much as sitting. As a teacher I learned that many learners needed content given in short bursts. Others could do what we call ‘paying attention’ by listening quietly for a wide variety of lengths of time. Of course the nature of content delivery needed to be varied if the teacher wanted all her students to understand. Some understood from the examples, the stories, others from pictures, others loved a long chain of ‘reasoning’. I was fascinated by observing that age did not change this, my elementary, high school, university, post graduate groups of learners all contained this variety of learners although the ‘patient rationalists’ survived longer in educational institutions than those of us with less capacity for patience, or perhaps different ways of being rational.
All learners in my classes learned best interactively but there were so many different ways of interacting with content usefully. Some needed quiet, some needed background sound. Etc. So I think that even stabilizing the gaze may look different in different cultures, contexts and in different individuals in those spaces. Now that doesn’t mean that a person can’t learn to learn in other ways. They can, but I think perhaps that they learn more superficially when required to do so.
So I guess I am agreeing with you but from a different perspective. I should probably think this reaction through more thoroughly before I post it, but of course my learning/teaching/being a thoughtful human style means I probably won’t.😅I
Thank you so so much for sharing. I think the key thing remains this distinction: passive vs transformational engagement. I do think transformational engagement is possible in tiny bursts - due to my health, that’s how I operate 95% of the time. And then we also have to account for neuro diverse people - who teach us quite a lot about various possibilities of engagement.
@@VladVexlerPhilosophy as someone who is probably on the autistic spectrum, I find I can pay attention for hours for topics or people who seem informationally or morally important. But when there are discussions of superficiality or what I see as empty BS, such as in business contexts, then I just switch off. I wonder if the appealing of fsuperficiality that you talk about is part of what enables normal social interactions.
I definitely agree that the key distinction is that between passive and transformational engagement. It’s just that we often fail to recognize that both can take such a wide variety of forms, most of them unrecognized.
@@forthrightgambitia1032 👍👍👍👍
Vlad has the gift of holding one's attention, I think he hypnotizes us 👀😄 I always come away learning something new and remembering it, wish I had lecturers like him in uni..👀
definitely a hypnotist ...his thoughtful pauses are such a breath of fresh air compared to the 30 edits per minute vids
The fact this video is talking about attention span while being the biggest challenge to my attention span in the last few months is pretty ironic. You are an incredible presenter, the ability to go off script (i assume) is amazing, as it means you are forced to speak slower to formulate incredibly precise and articulate language and hence giving me time to actually comprehend what is being said. If you had a script, while it would probably be more efficient, it would completely lose someone like me due to the fault of being too efficent. Whats interesting is how fast videos such as this one seem to end, it just forces all attention on the subject matter and as a result time just flies by.
Vlad, thank you for making this thought-provoking content. You are truly an inspiration, intellectually and creatively, and I feel absolutely blessed to live in a time where I can listen to your worldview with gunk still in my eyes from my night's rest while lazily eating breakfast. Especially thank for you making the leap to make these videos, as I know it is very difficult to place yourself in such a vulnerable position sharing one's thoughts on the internet, which can easily be dissected and attacked by the many sound bite crusaders of our times.
One thought that comes to mind regarding your conception of attention span as being the ability to hold out on a conclusion, is that it sounds very similar to the concept of working memory. Essentially you're saying, being able to hold this information in your mind, not synthesizing it with other ideas too quickly, and then holding out until the end, which is a measure of primarily short-term memory followed by higher order cognitive functions. This is an excellent point to make, as "attention" span which is usually where fingers are pointed, doesn't seem to be quite the right area to point fingers as people are certainly still capable of assessing and directing their attention within a moment -- the more significant discussion should be around the sustained short term memory, or the attention.
Both working memory and the final synthesizing of this information would require the brain's frontal lobe. This area also happens to be heavily impaired in people with ADHD, which is well-known to be an all out pandemic at the moment, and I'll add I don't believe that this is entirely reducable to over-diagnosis.
Perhaps you've tapped into a deeper intuition of a way that our brains are changing, for a reason researchers may not entirely know yet (my wife works as a researcher in this field which is why it comes to mind). Anyways not sure if you'll see this, but just my two cents :)
I dunno mate, seems were heading towards being rats with electrodes in our pleasure centres. Hopefully metaphorically speaking!
I really go for the long format, in most of the things I watch.
But I'm weird in that way, I consume knowledge because it comforts and relaxes me. So the longer the better as my time zoning out from my own daily madness is longer.
I filmed at the Austrian parliament today, the concentration of willful ignorance is hard to bear.
As always greetings from Vienna.
I relate to your desire for long-form "knowledge" content (as opposed to fiction / current events / popular culture / sports / etc). It's always been a great stress reliever for some reason I don't entirely understand, but vaguely refer to as a type of personality. I will say though, people with our inclinations should be careful not to romanticize our intellectuality too much, heaven knows I did when I was younger :)
@Trey S. yes, my younger self was a know all and pompous asshole too. 😉😆
In the meantime, I refer to myself as "the lexicon of useless knowledge "
The further accumulation of knowledge now is purely self indulgence and the realisation of the age old axiom of Socrates"the more I know, the more I realise I know nothing. "
On the bright side, I have an 11 year old mini me, just she is into biology.
I am about to go Long Form. Thank you for the reminder of the term, it's fitting for how I feel right now in finishing my thesis and doing it in this short form world. This is what I feel is lacking in my current writing, that deep state of focus and it's because of the over saturation of information. I can feel it in the way my mind tracks.
I suspended SM 6 months ago, but now it's RUclips, lovely channels like yours, Vlad, that's the current distraction and I find it fascinating that you took this topic on, right when I'm about sign off. There's a new book, Stollen Focus, I saw the author on Amanpour and Co last week. It's that deep listening, suspension of control/belief, stasis, that allows for new ideas and big concepts to establish, to percolate and to affect change...and so in this sense I think we are suffering. I'm suffering from it, anyway....
I'm getting rid of my smart phone and will only allow a small fraction of time for my RUclips indulgence. I'm really looking forward to it.
I noticed that book too. Think I’ll get it. Great good wishes for you as you complete the demanding task of thesis writing.
I don't know, but I know from personal experience that I could retrain it, and it wasn't particularly hard either. I remember trying to read a book, and every couple sentences or so, my mind would go somewhere else and there really wasn't anything wrong with the content. So every time this happened, I forced myself to go back to the last thing I remembered reading. Progress came pretty fast from there. I will hasten to add that this also involved me dropping the thing that made my attention span go away in the first place. Within weeks, I was much better already, and in a mere few months, I was back to being able to concentrate for hours without losing the plot.
I think there are so many competing options for attention, that most prefer to consume more items with condensed substance rather than fewer items that are less dense but can afford to delve deeper and explore more nuance.
I would even say also in the past less dense and in some case less valuable. Do people consume less low quality TV these days because there is for example better quality content available like this?
I agree. Phones and easy access to entertainment is a huge problem. I'm only ever 2 - 3 seconds away from Twitter/YT/insta, and my mind goes to mush.
It's a serious problem for me, I hate it and I want to stop but it's so quick and rewarding to just flick on some YT.
Modern living makes having time to read a book a luxury for many people.
If not for short attention spans, it would be much more difficult for the establishment to convince people to get their next booster or fly the blue n yeller.
Very interesting thoughts!
I am afraid that the Twitter type of communication is contributing very much to superficial thinking and echo chambers.
I am afraid one aspect is simply the great proliferation of content which means there is too much competing content.
I would actually measure attention span not by the time listening to what is being said. But by the time that you take to think of what you just listened to. And to research more. And to listen to other alternative views to what you just listened to.
Me too!
I always use the internet to find hidden gems. You start with a short RUclips video about a subject and if it really clicks you do that deep dive on your own.
'Rachmaninoff was a pop composer of genius but not a composer of great revolutionary depth who evolved the musical language.'
Indeed. The latter one was his school mate Alex :)
So very true.
I hope this did not come from my previous comment about taking a nap during a long talk :D
I don't usually subscribe to a channel if it does not occasionally produce at least 45minute episodes, preferably 1-2h. I want to invite a discussion or debate in to my day and let it reside there for as long as possible.
Mr. Beast is super popular, but I can't stand his videos as there is no room to think and participate at all. It works though, there's no question about it.
People tend to watch stuff that interests them, regardles if it takes a long time to watch/listen. Be it 1h silent videos about painting miniatures, or two hour stream of talking about some twitch couple's relationship drama, or social psychology videos about Russian mentality.
Please keep up your work. It is splendid. Everybody respects your content and there's only big things waiting for you. Thank you for everything.
All the best from Helsinki.
This is classic Adorno vs. Disney / need vs. want
Sorry but I lost interest after a couple of minutes.
As a pleb from a heavily stigmatised “rough” city, I did my best at school, back in the 1960s & 70s to swerve the 19th century - as one of my teachers drily observed. As someone with a mouth on me, he pressed me to take an Eng Lit class. How surprised was I to find that Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility are rich-people romcoms?
And practically the same one.
Last week I read Sense & Sensibility & Zombies and laughed like a drain.
On a platform where genres collide and you have absolute artistic freedom within the law, a mix of long and short-form entertainment is enviable, growing up with advertisements, music videos and other short-form entertainment rammed down our throats. Circus-vibe and gameshow mixed with the above, and you've got something that resembles Mr beast.
Personally I like to watch videos that last until I've finished my tea 🍵
Good point. If Dostoyevsky is highbrow, then why not ken Kesey? If Ken Casey is highbrow, then why not William Burroughs? If you keep going down this path, then eventually, Quentin Tarantino is highbrow, and there is no hope for any of us. LOL.
Well put Vlad. Words stay with us after the 20sec videos are gone. I'm so glad I found this channel. It only took me over a year even though I watch your other channels. It's honestly a good break from the war. Not that Ukraine gets a break :( I'm glad to of found this channel. This is truly your strength!
Vlad, wait…what did you say? Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.
More seriously, the number of people who multitask (such as during meetings, using their electronic devices extensively) may be evidence of your point.
Wow thanks Vlad. That was so encouraging for me. I thought as I dont understand a lot of what I’m listening to is ok, even good. I thought that my attention span was a lot worse than it used to be but yes I’m listening above my level. Age 76 and having left school at 15 I am still thirsty for knowledge. Age 48 a gained my RMHN qualification . So I started late. But love it all. Thanks a bundle. Kathy from Kent.
Beside asking how long we can listen without understanding we could also ask to what rhythm we are willing to go. As a young adult I enjoyed a lot some of Tarkovsky's movies. Recently looking back on some of these movies I realized that I needed to readjust for a while before starting enjoying them again--they are slow pace, lyric movies .
Tarkovsky is tyrannical in the sustained attention he demands - that’s a compliment.
I still remember the first time I saw a music video (fast cuts, no storyLINE) ... I was completely confused.
I would be curious to hear your take on self-improvement culture Vs actual self-improvement, given you mentioned that. Or perhaps you elaborated on that elsewhere, I will check your other videos. Thanks for an interesting perspective.
Who is Joe Rogan? Is that that fat/skinny guy from those stoner flicks? I have never ever once listened to Joe Rogan. I'd rather listen to a real philosopher such as you, Vlad.
Maybe we should look at the internet algorithms more in a different view, like c.g. Jung describes the collective unconsciousness. The attention span problem is more a problem of what to teach the children when they are young instead of teaching them how to think with for example the razor's of philosophies they get "books" pressed into their head afterwards they try to seem knowledgeable but it´s easy to see thou these illusions of knowledge by one look into their eye's. Focus is something that can be trained, like you said, a question of willpower.
I'm bored with material that is too predictive or that doesn't leave anything interesting ("new", "problematic") to think about afterwards.
When it comes to purely superficial entertainment, a good bit is something that makes you laugh.
Possibly my favourite of all your videos, and it was an exercise of its own essence. I did not expect that definition at all, and for a good chunk of that video I did not understand your argument. I think I’ve wrapped my head around it now, and it’s beautiful and elegant, and I’ll be better tomorrow for having consumed this today. Many thanks, Vlad.
The answer is actually no. There's nothing wrong with our attention spans. Giving attention is an act of energy investment. The issue is that we have a limited capacity to process large volume of information and as we (in "marketing behavior" businesses) measure this we notice a sort of information processing fatigue. To keep attention "going" the person has to be interested in the matter and we see that people maintain focus on complex and demanding information just fine, as long as they have a reason to do it. This isn't new and it hasn't been better in the past. In the past we weren't exposed to an enormous amount of information so we weren't as fatigued. That's fundamentally the difference. We find that high quality information, delivered well, maintains high degree od attention (nothing new). Entertainment is a bit different becase human brain can be "hacked" and influenced to consume what makes it curious - so drivel gets a lot of attention and a lot of short drivel gets a lot more attention. But overall, no, we are not less capable of maintaining attention. What we are is exposed to a load of poorly delivered and low quality content.
Maybe a more compelling question would be, why an average content creator can't objectively judge the quality of their content and why they feel entitled to someone's attention.
*I DO A LOT* of listening without comprehending - its kinda my specialty
Thank you thank you. Let me enrich your argument with a couple of possible examples. Here's one: 1) I am a devout believer, and one of my unspoken tenets is that hearing the words of the sermon, or of the passage of scripture, is in itself sanctifying. So there's a possible example of listening without comprehending, but a) something is taken from it (emotional? reassuring? etc?), and b) there is more than a hint of hierarchy, i.e. there's a sense of something coming from on high that has authority and so some ability to compel attention. Or 2) my girlfriend, an aficianado of classical Indian music, has taken me to a live concert, my first contact with the real thing. I want to understand it, I want to show I care to participate, at least because I'm curious, but also of course because I want to impress her with my willingness etc., even though I have no idea why the audience is participating so actively (and so unlike the solemn listening of European classical music audiences). Now, first, there is in these examples -- and in many others that you could no doubt surprise us with -- an element which does not correspond to the self-improvement which you (as I heard you) made central to the listening-without-comprehending. This is not a difficulty for the self-improvement notion you've slipped into your discourse, but it does encourage us to reflect on the poverty of the assertion that we have somehow generically lost our ability to attend long-form. If we have compelling reason, *in respect of some other or others*, of course we can attend long-form. No problem, because our listening or attending is so very often accompanied with some presence of others. (I wonder myself if the idea of our supposed loss of capacity to attend could seem plausible because it is set against an unspoken supposition arising in an educational praxis which takes all participants to have capacities which exist wholly without a social component. The best example of this is the IQ test, which delivers a result allegedly shorn of any context whatsoever: one stand's alone, not before one's God, but before one's naturally arising brain power.)
I'm curious about your idea of the self-improvement which might be present to some degree in all or some examples of attendance-to-something. I recognize that as a plausible idea that might be sorted out with careful enough sifting among the sheaf of purposes realized in this or that act of attendance. It sounds to me as though you want to make that self-improvement foundational, and that's fine with me. But let me just put another perspective, namely that there is a great deal of activity in human life that can be regarded as a value in itself, and so require no further necessary self-improvement. Say I'm a keen cinema fan, and so have picked up a great deal about cinema. Sometimes I have sat through a damned long film I didn't like very much, but it's just part of my being a fan, and the self-improvement might be an adventitious effect of my sustained and simple being a fan. Or I give you the example shown so well in the BBC production *Detectorists*, which displayed people involved in sustained attention to finding things underground but which might in fact consume the participants time, energy, wealth and attention with no necessary component of self-improvement, even though there may be a wealth of other accompanying goods which accrue to one person or another as a consequence of their own endowments and situation.
Be that as it may ... thank you hugely for your very engaging argument.
As a retired teacher and administrator who taught in K-12, community college and at the university while a graduate student, it seems to me that it is more about patience and expectations than about attention span. Attention span has a lot of variables such as mood, diet, genetics, environment, prior experiences, etc, but it is more deeply ingrained in who we are as an individual. While patience too has variables (some of the same), when we look at why society seems to be evolving away from more lengthy, developed information sources for quicker, shorter ones, it seems to be connected to the evolution of technology. As technology gets faster, more efficient, better at distilling information down to its core, people's expectations on how they consume information changes. In short we come to expect our information in quick bite-sized pieces. I personally do not see attention spans collapsing.
I don't really get your "listening without comprehension" point. I understand what you mean but I wouldn't listen to you, for any appreciable amount of time, if I wasn't comprehending your points. I read/listen to things to gain knowledge/understanding.
I see a lot on RUclips where content providers are trying to draw those with short attention spans in, such as Times Radio who put a snippet of a conversation at the start of a video, and it annoys me because I want to hear that snippet in context, not divorced from it.
I believe that many people creating long form serious content just aren't as engaging as old formats because the intent has set the bar to entry low. There were never any old face to camera TV shows because it's not an engaging format, humans aren't designed for one way conversations. If eloquently written then yes it's possible but RUclips and podcasts are not that. Most of these formats are rambling. That's okay, it's a bit like talk radio but still not as good. The major pro is that you get more niche topics.
I'm not saying attention span is not being eroded at all, just many content creators aren't as interesting as they think they are, even if they are highly intelligent and insightful. Even in a lecture there's a chance to interact and a social imperative to listen. Remove them and well, is it really any wonder people tune out?
As for serious moral content on mainstream channels, yes, that's largely gone and it's tragic.
Humans haven't fundamentally changed, it's the result of various technologies in conjunction with innate human characteristics. This is actually an important topic because there are many technologies that, in spite of short term benefits or desirability, are having deleterious effects on human behavior and in turn, on the world we live in... Even on the substrate of essential, natural resources and systems upon which we rely for our survival and well being.
The permanence of a lost intellectual capacity is partial and conditional. If you lost both your hands, your capacity to grasp things manually _with_ _those_ _same_ _hands_ would have been lost permanently, but that is because the physical parts required are not regenerative, similar to saying some parts of our physical bodies aren't plastic. But the brain is, and remains so throughout life, barring unusually critical damage. So capacities which have never been developed or have been disused to the point of atrophy are generally capable of development or regeneration, in some degree. But _motivation_ to engage in new thinking patterns tends to decline with age, which is largely a cultural phenomenon. Since culture is often intractable, the capacity becomes moot in the absence of motivation. It's the same as with any sort of healthy habits, we often often simply neglect to form them.
Regarding the sort of cultish viewership you describe for some popular long-form shows, the qualities of the material to which one is attentive matters a great deal. Attention span for any individual is relative to the sorts of things which motivate their attentiveness. I would be intensely bored by a cultish personality self-designating as the sole authority on whatever topic they (often arbitrarily) select to monologue on. But people who are prone to be cult followers can seemingly never get enough of the pablum they are fed with. The greater majority of us have _some_ topics which would hold our attentions for much longer time periods than would other issues.
Reminded me of something Sina Drums said in a video 2 years ago.
"In order to succeed in the music business, musicians are asked to keep their songs short. It is said that today's audience is not capable of concentrating for more than 2 minutes. Therefore, todays mainstream music is lacking any form of intros and interludes and songs are supposed to start with catchy vocals right away."
Well, when I see four people in a half hour push on the door that they pushed to enter, yes: lacking in attention span. 🧟♂️🧟♀️🧟
First time you listened to hits, instead of a sxmphony?
First time you listened to stereo instead of mono?
First time you watched a music clip instead of a story?
First time you listened to someone on youtube instead of reading a book?
...
I think there is also an evaluative calculation going on with humans today given the sheer mass of choice in information and stimuli. For example, if there was a sermon in a local town in the 1800s, there is nowhere else is to be and nothing else much to listen to. You were there and listening. physiologically
Short form video is the opiate of the masses.
Mossydog Marx
(Yes, I'm being a bit of a smart arse, but it is largely true)
Standing to attention. Hurry up and wait. The values of military service.
I’m 71 and my concentration span is much reduced. I just want one line news in print or online. I find the news half hour on TV arduous and slow.
I've been an online seller 4 decades but I'm just not sure we should have given RUclipsrs analytics.. I'm just ..idk if that was good thing 😆
Vlad, you should edit out only the punchline of this video (it's our ability to sustain attention without understanding), then cut out all the gaps between your words and release it as a #short 🙂 ... with a shorter title too of course
Is our attention span ... wait a minute. I think I heard something outside. Back later.😅
Having pondered on this matter my conclusion is....what is it we are taking about again. On a serious note I think there are too many distractions in the modern world. There is always something else to move onto to feed you. Too much choice and not enough time to consume it.
Vlad interesting ideas, glad you're speaking about this subject.
The concept you mentioned of "attending without comprehending" reminds me of the role that plasticity has in critical media theory. Humans silently patiently read printed text on paper for enjoyment for hundreds of years. It only took a tweak of technology to, perhaps accidentally, vastly over-emphasize our visual sense which is much less internalized and participatory. So it's almost like a reverse sensus communis -- i.e. recently blind person gaining heightened sense of touch or smell, but in reverse. The over-emphasis, or overheating, of the visual medium using modern communication technology, whether typographic, video, or pictographic, has had a dulling effect on our capacity to internalize, or participate, and therefore comprehend more complex forms of information that require the same amount of patience as the printed word.
Thanks for your chats! Look forward to more.
would be interesting to hear you do a longer video on the self help culture. I can't stand it but i have many acquaintances who seem uninterested in anything else. it's almost a binary thing, they are interested in self help books but nothing else, whereas i am interested in many eclectic topics excluding self help. John Cleese and Eric Idle suggested the self help obsession is an American thing ..i can see that, American narcissism and consumerism
It's probably telling that I zoned out after the first sentence lmao
I'm sorry my man, you're great
As the late great Sir Terry Pratchett would say, we are "where the rising ape meets the falling angel"...
Despite the huge amount of money that whatever that beast bloke has doesn't make him a good soul.
Hey, this is a good vide- SQUIRREL!
What? Sorry, i wasnt paying attention..
What? Sorry comment too long didn’t read
I have no idea who Mr. Beast is? He’s defiantly been off my radar. Now I’m curios and I wonder why?
Hi Bubblegum,
YT deleted my comment, so I try to repost uncommented:
MrBeast ruclips.net/video/7IKab3HcfFk/видео.html
Mr. Hilmer ruclips.net/video/oghdEdBRACw/видео.html
Take care. 🧡
I wouldn’t mind a three hour session a day.
When it comes to hour or more podcasts, I usually listen in my car in however many segments it takes to listen to the whole thing. Sometimes when I get to my destination, I'll keep listening for some time.
And I have no idea who Mr. Beast is. I don't think I want to find out. But now that I've typed those words, UToob will probably start throwing those videos at me.
As a software engineer I am essentially playing chess with the computer all day. Depends on the individual.
there's a lot of variables that decide how long your personal attention span is and how it is measured or even described.... for me, when i was young, i had the attention span of an overactive dog but then i noticed that dog was able to focus on small details and i learned .... and now that i'm old, i work very diligently at forgetting at what i learned
Most of us love an action movie, but we call it escapism for a reason. It is a holiday for our minds. We are being taken on a mindless ride amd it is fun.
Things that make us ask questions of ourselves and the world are different. Ideas that make us co sides and reconsider (however they are presented, through conversation, observations of society around us, art, ideas, listening to the ideas of others. Interactions with the world that have the power to make us change our opinions and reactions.
I used to watch One content provider. This guy would show his analytics and view payments to his subscribers then we watched him physically take it and donate it all locally 👍
that is the world we make❤️
please clean the lens on the camera Vlad
Thanks Vlad, I agree and have noticed that since I've become a writer I find it harder to read physical books, especially the literary fiction I enjoyed in my twenties. Being sedentary and having the Internet available to respond to every curious twitch of enquiry during the process of reading is extremely distracting. The solution is long walks in the countryside with an audio book.
I was glad to hear you describe Rachmaninov as a great pop composer. His piano concerti and the paganini variations are wonderful fun but never rocked my world like Brahms did. I'm FASCINATED to hear you rate Schumann so highly. Me too, but I don't understand why. I've loved his music since I was a teenager but I assumed it was just a personal preference. Would love it if you had time to name a couple of the best Schumann pieces, in your opinion, that aren't Carnaval, Piano concerto in A and Papillons, so I can know where to focus. Thank you so much for your thoughts, energy and time.
Look, I'm a chemist and I work in the innovation ecosystem, I'm hella lot used to fast paces in everything in my life. At least for me is hard and painful to stop and focus on someone slowly talking and making a point
In a video like yours, I usually meander in and out of actively listening to the point quite a few times.
Well, I finally found this mythic channel you refer to always Vlad....only took months and months:)
As for Mr. Beast and the whimsical human gene - all animals play, even bacteria (I don't know, but I imagine their play is a part of their existence too). Where it crosses into a societal dysfunction or a sad parody of excess in a society lacking humanistic ideals, it loses all value in the world. Not sure where Mr. Beast fits in all of this, it's spectacle and I'd dare say the answers to why humans care is likely some quantum mystery we'll never know.
Hee hee welcome!
"The ability to listen or read without comprehension" is an excellent description of what's at stake in a culture's ability to fruitfully partake of long-form media.
The first thing that came to mind as I was listening to the opening seconds of this video is one of my favorite book series. It's very easy to engage superficially with. The characters are easy to relate to. The plot arcs are clear, and have satisfying resolutions. But those aren't what the books are about. They're about theodicy. They're about consequentialism versus deontology. And so on, through all the issues that arise in the characters' lives. People read for hundreds of hours without comprehending (fans typically re-read the entire series whenever a new book is about to be released, so hundreds of hours is not an exaggeration), and it's easy -- because we as a culture have the means for an author to make it easy. The author is brilliant, but she didn't invent the novel as a form. She didn't invent the tropes of romance novels, swords-and-sorcery novels, and so on, that she uses. That stuff is part of our cultural inheritance. It wasn't developed specifically to help people read without comprehension for hundreds of hours, but that is part of what it was for, and is for, because the ability to address challenging themes is part of what makes a novel satisfying.
Fascinating! Now I must go find these novels! Thanks.
Did he answer the question? I tuned out after 30 seconds.
Just kidding by the way
ATTN VLAD,Thank you Vlad, and congratulations on your newest subscriber.I am a painter in the USA, and believe it or not, only "discovered " RUclips about 5 years ago,(via two teenage daughters,- .... and that I am serious about interest in conversing and everything that follows as well.) In any event I have never "subscribed " to a channel,( it seemed like asking someone to periodically poke my extremely "poke" averse being at there most convenient and prime "poking" hours was not something to pursue). But alas, this very video has invited a new chapter into my life with this very conscientious request for "poking". I appreciate your work and particularly your manner of "relational" description (in approach to your subject matter,) as opposed to definitional "pre-termed" assumptions, (or as E. Ricketts termed it "A delicate equilibrium of the most complex sort") when broaching common events, along with the perennially inward facing dilemmas that surface in an examined life. Good Luck, (and if you have any inquiries in the direction of painting/visual art, either historical, or current) I have been working as a painter for 43 years, and have generated quite a dense body of thought on this daily vocation, its impetus and its relationship to things larger than my own exertions,( without much, if any, volatile or radical convulsions in abandoning the continuity of my own "first principles", as much as anyone can self-define that idea I suppose.) So feel free to email and bounce any bridge or contingent inquiries my way for a modulated alternative commentary on your thought or question. I grew up North Eas USA , a blue collar Teamster family, along with a friends father who was a dept. chair, museum Dirct. at (one of,) the worlds premier Univ., and,( of interest/curiosity to you possibly,) member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. A full, rich, odd and most improbable convergence. It was a childhood, in other words of , a part-time adolescence, negotiating the realities of a common socio-economic class struggle , but also
an equally part-time matriculation at an informal academy of being introduced to the conscientious responsibility of practicing disciplined critical thinking. Which was to be separated from ones own happenstance origin, (further complicated by the fact that I was an orphan born in a convent.This was explicitly underscored with phrases like,"We understand your parents are un-educated.") In the early 70's there were days when would be playing basketball afterschool, while simultaneously being peppered with Socratic interrogations,( He always spoke in questions, and "We" always ""already know that X is true...." about that months subject. It could range from,Deconstruction and Material Dialectics, or The enduring merits of Wonder Bread in late stage capitalism, or The self-recognition of the individual in the artisan class of the Hindus Valley civilizations, and possibly linked to the possible effect that the smelting of Bronze and Iron had on any prehistory civilizations. Then, (with the beautiful ignorance in which only the familiar high-relief antithesis can become routine, ) that court-side "forum" might be followed by returning home in order to help at my uncles bar/bookie/backroom video poker den, or running food out of the kitchen at my aunts "dollar -a- plate/ dollar-a-meatball macaroni and gravy" hustle in the bar/sports book to my uncles patrons. So yes I would welcome any crossover thoughts on Philosophy,Art, Politics, Economics or Culture on which you may want to hear another perspective. (From the 3 dozen or so videos I saw on your channel, you seem to have come from a similarly eclectice background of experiences.) thanks
❤❤❤ Absolutly love Vlad, all his channels and topics. Renesaince man
Thank you so much!!
Just watched MrBeast for the first time, never having heard of him before. I watched two of the videos for maybe 30 seconds each, probably less. They almost immediately made me emotionally, psychologically, intellectually seasick. I didn’t know such a feeling was possible.
I understood perfectly what you were saying about MrBeast, until I watched it. Now I have no idea what you were explaining about MrBeast.
My English class and I tackled Kafka's Metamorphosis together. Gregor's transformation was difficult for us to comprehend but we were able to hang in there as we worked towards comprehension of the punchline. The students required a critical lenz through which to question the author's motives. It sounds strange to say we had "fun" interpreting Kafka and learning about poor Gregor's fate, but we did. The worry I have is that anything in education with the word "critical" attached to it is seen as anathema by those who view the creation of meaning as their preserve alone, for the inculcation of nationalistic feelings. Shrinking attention spans are a desired consequence for political actors on the European and American right. So, we should not be surprised when the attention problem manifests in society but we are not powerless against it as teachers or as citizens.
if marshmallow-ology is any indicator we're probably getting better (excerpted) _"John Protzko, a postdoctoral scholar from the University of California, Santa Barbara, analyzed 50 years of replications of the iconic marshmallow study and concluded that _*_children, generation after generation, are growing increasingly better at delaying gratification,_*_ an established predictor of success down the line"._
NOTE 84 percent of the 260 cognitive development experts(Protzko surveyed), *_predicted that kids now would be worse_*
Came across this video while letting RUclips's algorithm distract myself from my performance anxiety before tonight's performance of Rachmaninoff's 3. piano concerto (edit. french horn part, not as soloist).
Was actually thinking about tonight's music as entertainment right before you mentioned Rachmaninoff as a pop-genius. Also, I kinda liked your comparison of what is often regarded as high art to Mr Beast's content. Many of my musical colleagues would probably frown at the proposition, but for my adolescent students listening tonight, it could in fact be an interesting topic of discussion for the next lesson. :)
"Listening for a long span without comprehension" also resonates with how I feel about art - and why believe I'm drawn to it (as well as philosophy, lol). I'm gonna need to reflect on this more, but I feel like for me these work almost as a kind of a detox and therapy for my fragmented and jumpy ADHD mind. Speaking of which, I also frequently listen to you while practicing. Helps me focus (on both)... XD
Lots of love
Regarding the JRE you forgot weed, mushrooms, DMT, the portential impact of psychelics, stand up and some story about some friend we've also heard 100 times. O, maybe some "animals are crazy, nature is freaky" reactions.
Dear Vlad, Toteninsel sincerely disagrees! (Especially compared to Schumann's orchestral Work..!)
Well, Vlad, I had to look up Mr. Beast as I had never heard of him and... well, "ugh", is all I can muster.
I do enjoy Rachmaninov, however, so I'm not a complete snob! Thanks for another thoughtful video.
Wouldn't it be more precise to say that you judge a culture's attention span by it's capacity to listen longform in the stade of BOREDOM? I mean boredom can come from consuming something you don't quite understand, and from something you do understand, but lacks novelty.
So it is basically an extreme aversion towards boredom, that creates low attention span...?
I absolutely love your videos, by the way!! :)
Yes, our attention span is - OH LOOK A BUTTERFLY!!! Hope your health is doing well. Thanks for the videos!
It's exposure, EXPOSURE; people have unlimited capabilities.
Just a side note...I have noticed that novels have generally got much longer; apparently the average number of pages has increased by 25% in the last fifteen years. So some of us still have attention stamina. Mind you, Kantar Media (2019) estimated only 51% of UK adults have read a book in the last year. On the other hand Przemysław Jarząbek examined the data on film length and surprisingly, "movies" are not getting any longer. Maybe thay are just harder to sit through so it seems like it.
As soon as someone on YT starts speaking slowly and carefully, I feel it's safe to watch YT videos at 1.25-1.75X speed because I want to consume more data from them in less time. I would in fact publish any speech/video from myself at 1.25X in the first place because I respect my listeners' time, and that attracts their attention simply by my higher symbol-rate of information.
#JustSpitItOutMan !
I believe it's getting better, look at the popular nature of long form podcasts, all kinds of different jargon. Listen to lex, DOCTOR Peterson(crazy Canada) I digress. Dosen't one have to comprehend at least a bit to attend.?
I have never seen MrBeast on YT till you mentioned him, so I watched a Lamborghini being crushed - what a crock of 💩.
Your video reminded me of Roald Dahl words in Matilda, “Don't worry about the bits you can't understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.”