generational attention span difference?

[sophiaserpentia]

Supposedly 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.

Comments

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Do more acid. :)) :)) :))

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I'm def. open to the idea. But even then, i still prefer to maintain focused attention.

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Then you need to take even more. :))

>:)

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Sounds like fun, in any case. But what if i don't particularly see this as a problem?

[azaz-al.livejournal.com]

Acid will fix your non-problem. Acid fixes EVERYTHING!

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Woot!

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Whereas I'm very non-linear and I welcome IMs--I am currently working on like 3 things at once, writing this comment, and having 5 IM conversations (very sporadically, though). Somehow, my work gets done. Most of the time, I'm not sure how.

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

I also prefer focus. I do maintain an IM window with E most days, since we see so little of each other otherwise, but other windows popping up often make me anxious. I am working on cutting back on pop-up notifications about email and such, as I find myself overwhelmed more and mroe easily of late. Much of it is the toddler, but I also think as I age my tolerance for data barrage is dropping.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

There have been times when i've turned on IM and had one conversation going on, and that's been okay. That's generally the only way i'll consider doing it.

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I can handle two, if I'm not doing anything else, but 3 is too many.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I can't for the life of me figure out why someone would waste the time pecking away at a tiny numeric keyboard to send an IM that would take a fraction of the time to actually JUST PHONE and communicate said message.

And much like MyWaste sucks my soul out to the degree that I just refuse to go there, I feel like old cranky people but honestly, most of myspace pages seems to be shrines to ADHD.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Sometimes i can't even watch music videos. They have this technique of changing the image every 1.25 seconds (or something like that) which they claim is required to maintain the interest of the average viewer. I must be way off, because i want to see images for much longer than 1.25 seconds. When images are changed that rapidly, it's not to unlike flashing lights, which makes me feel like i'm gonna get a headache.

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

The first 20 minutes of Moulin Rouge just about gave me a headache. All I wanted was them to slow down to about half speed on their editing (so I could SEE the costuming!). It was really hard to sit through.

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

i think growing up watching tv programs your brain to jump rapidly between different ideas in very short bursts. and with text messaging and IMing and the like we're programming our brains to multi-thread.

I'm worried that the "multi-threading" tendency may come at the expense of the ability to maintain long-term single-pointed concentration. I know that when my job goes through its intermittent stages of lots of little things needing attention in rapid succession (both computer-based and paper-based), that my ability to just sit quietly and read a novel or nonfiction in my off-time is negatively impacted, and it takes a while to return.

I suspect the jury is still out on whether the next generations will lose the ability to read and enjoy long novels, or to follow long trains of thought or conversation, due to fragmented concentration spans.

[herbalgrrl.livejournal.com]

you know, you have a point and...

...

...

I'm sorry, did you say something?

[alobar.livejournal.com]

One positive aspect of the younger generation's short attention span is that they get bored during an in-depth palm or card reading, so I give them a 3 minute reading instead of a 10 minute reading. They don't lose interest, and my hourly income is significantly increased if I read a hoard of young people with poor attention spans. If I bounce around several topics, then weaved it all back together, if I don't complete sentences, and pause briefly whenever a cop car, pretty girl, or other distraction manifests, then pick up right where I left off, they are amazed at my ability to keep them entertained. I use the same technique on children who have poor attention spans who have not yet learned to focus or maintain interest. That is to say, I talk down to them and treat the college age people with poor attention spans like I am dealing with addlepated pre-teens.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's generational so much as sheer age. As I climb through my 30s I can feel my abilities to do the things you decribe falling away. I get brainlock much more easily now.

Of course, the good part is GAINING WISDOM.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Eh, maybe. The worst thing about wisdom is that most people are incapable of listening to it, which in turn leads to a lot of stress and hair-pulling.

IME the best thing so far is the sex drive becoming manageable and not feeling like so much of a snarling beast.

[hearthstone.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem with Myspace, I think, is simple poor design--not a big surprise since, from what I've seen, it's a pain in the butt to configure. I prefer simple, organized sites, but that's possibly my background in tech writing coming through rther than my age (I'm 45). My main problems with difficult web interfaces have to do with my declining vision, I think.

I do think that younger folks may be so used to the idea of always being available--cell phones, IM and so forth--that these things just don't bother them. Personally I don't have a cell phone (they don't work at our house anyway, yay for the country life!) and I don't IM. Sometimes you don't want to be easily accessible, you know?

[igferatu.livejournal.com]

Well there is an issue of overstimulation toxicity. The effect of depriving one's brain of the more powerful rhythms of deep consciousness in favor of fast, superficial, and fragmented i/o is a very real threat to sanity, health, and probably civilization as a whole.

Also, it's not just that MySpace is fugly and loud and tacky, it's that the whole crappy aesthetic has become desirable. It's supposed to look like that. Or whatever.

In the not too distant future, I think we will begin to see a lot of backlash from communication technology addiction. It's a stimulant drug, pure and simple. We need something physical to put our minds in - like giant robot legs or hydraulic genitals on our cars.

[blairette.livejournal.com]

I concur. I don't enjoy instant messaging because it implies I will always be 'there' - in a head-space to chat. I will take time to go into a chatroom and conduct multiple conversations, but I have enough trouble answering a phone call if I'm writitng, say, an essay - having to stop everything for a banal message is just odd.

On the other hand my SO has ADD, so he manages just fine - in fact, he tends to spend his study time with an electronic mock exam open, two webcomics behind this, Cartoon Network playing and possibly music, and he will IM and try to hold a conversation with me at the same time!

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

i'm too linear for it.

Are you sure it has to do with linear? I mean, I'm not linear and I don't like MySpace or (for the most part) IM's. It isn't the interruption factor so much as the general lack of depth factor. It is a very superficial (and while visually it may not be linear, the actual content found therein usually allows for almost no type of associative connections thought wise. Very flat, linear speech used in a non-linear space, if that makes any sense). I find the communication there to be the net equivalent of "how are you doing" (the social convention, not actual inquiry). As such it is senseless and pointless.

Don't know about DailyKos. Never went there. First heard about the site by seeing some of the stuff Markos had to say elsewhere and that was enough to keep me away.

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

'Four arguments for the elimination of television' had a lot to say about this: Flip down to 'Artificial Unusualness and the Technical Events Test' (http://dim.com/~randl/telvision.htm) on this page for a summary of it.

[lightvortex.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link! Now I want to read that book.

I like to stop and check my email when I'm working, but I don't think that it's good for me to do this. I don't always remember what I was doing if I'm away from it for too long, so it takes me time to get back on track. On the other hand, I have trouble focusing intensely on anything for too long; perhaps this is why I do it. ADHD?

[orb2069.livejournal.com]

I'd reccomend the book, personally. It's quite the eye opener.