And we ask if Google is making us stupid – or at any rate whether networked technology is reducing attention spans, devaluing memory and blurring the line between making online connections and forming real relationships.
Somewhere between the Internet destroying long-form journalism by erasing revenues and reducing attention spans, it has made in-depth narrative reporting popular again.
Information overload contributes to stress and complicates consumers' information processing, sometimes resulting in anxiety, tension, reduced attention span, difficulty remembering information, and poor decision making (Waddington 2003).
Embrechts, Ebben, Franke, and van de Poel (2000) found 3 7;7 year-old children who stutter were judged to have reduced attention span and less success in adapting to new environments relative to controls.
Beavis and Butt-head premieres 22 September 1992 After a decade on the air, MTV had created its own subculture of TV watchers: mostly white, middle class, in their mid- to late-teens, and with greatly reduced attention spans resulting from years of sitting through four-minute music videos.
Even years after exposure, young children have reduced attention spans and diminished ability to think and reason abstractly.
Patterns, like noises, shorten attention spans.
But I am concerned that three things are slowing the natural evolution of cinema the eminence of the "event film" (already discussed), our obsessive insistence on a paraphrasable narrative, and the reduced visual attention span caused by over-consumption of television.
For example, driving while talking on the phone (illegal in many places) reduces your attention span greatly, and makes it easier for you to drop the phone to hold the steering wheel or pay attention to the road.
Some argue that the short texts usually found on the Internet are changing readers' habits, perhaps reducing our attention spans.
