generational attention span difference?
Apr. 13th, 2007 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaSupposedly Dailykos is all the shizzle in the blogosphere. But i took this off my del.icio.us page after maybe a week, because it's just too jumbled and chaotic for me. (It doesn't help that Markos has a penchant for being a clueless twit.) The way it's laid out just kind of assaults my mind, i don't know if i can describe the dissonance i experience looking at their page any more clearly than that.
I find out that the average readership of Dailykos is much younger than me, and i think about the similar problems i have with Myspace, which is also popular among a much younger crowd than me. And i wonder, is there some kind of generational brain-wiring difference going on here?
Maybe my attention-focusing faculty works differently or something. I like to submerge myself mentally and experientially in what i'm doing, and i HATE to be distracted. I've always been a bit overstimulation-averse.
One thing about Myspace and Dkos is that the main text takes up less than half the screen. And this means my eyes have to travel all over the damn place to figure out what goes where, and it's too much work.
Maybe it's the same difference that makes me despise instant messaging and rebel against even having my cell phone turned on most of the time: a neural intolerance for instantaneous multi-thread distraction. I am capable of changing my train of thought on a moment's notice, but i really don't like to. I particularly loathe the implication of instant messaging, that my own trains of thought will always take a back seat to the whim of half a dozen horny net geeks who swoop in to ask for sexual favors while i'm trying to plot my novel or think Deep Thoughts.
It doesn't matter that there are settings to make me visible only to a select few people. No offense, but i don't want to be bothered by a IM from anyone, even any of you. It's nothing personal. Getting an IM makes me want to rip out my hair, even if it's from someone i like. I know i am socially hobbling myself, but it's for my own sanity. I'm just can't be any more plugged in; i'm too linear for it.
I find out that the average readership of Dailykos is much younger than me, and i think about the similar problems i have with Myspace, which is also popular among a much younger crowd than me. And i wonder, is there some kind of generational brain-wiring difference going on here?
Maybe my attention-focusing faculty works differently or something. I like to submerge myself mentally and experientially in what i'm doing, and i HATE to be distracted. I've always been a bit overstimulation-averse.
One thing about Myspace and Dkos is that the main text takes up less than half the screen. And this means my eyes have to travel all over the damn place to figure out what goes where, and it's too much work.
Maybe it's the same difference that makes me despise instant messaging and rebel against even having my cell phone turned on most of the time: a neural intolerance for instantaneous multi-thread distraction. I am capable of changing my train of thought on a moment's notice, but i really don't like to. I particularly loathe the implication of instant messaging, that my own trains of thought will always take a back seat to the whim of half a dozen horny net geeks who swoop in to ask for sexual favors while i'm trying to plot my novel or think Deep Thoughts.
It doesn't matter that there are settings to make me visible only to a select few people. No offense, but i don't want to be bothered by a IM from anyone, even any of you. It's nothing personal. Getting an IM makes me want to rip out my hair, even if it's from someone i like. I know i am socially hobbling myself, but it's for my own sanity. I'm just can't be any more plugged in; i'm too linear for it.
