Where Did Our Attention Go?

I'll start with this. Yes this isn't a new issue. People before the internet would play the radio or have orchestras as background noise, ambiance, I know. Yes I know people have always said "TV is ruining kids" "Radio is ruining kids" "Books are ruining kids" "The written word is ruining kids". But this time, with the internet? It's really different. Everyone who's been raised by the internet knows what I mean. Back in the day, what, you be a bookworm. You go to book clubs or the library or Barnes and Noble, you still go out and talk to people. But the internet? You don't even have to leave your house. You want music? You don't need to buy the record, you don't even need to put it on the turntable. Press a button, and it's all yours. Want to read the news? Don't need to wait for the daily paper. Don't even need to turn on the radio and wait for news. Just open up any search engine and it'll have headlines. At the press of a button. Need to do some math? Don't need to take out a pen and paper, don't even need to think. Just put in the numbers, and it'll do it. Want to translate? Don't need to learn a language or know someone that does. Take a picture, it'll automatically translate it with the press of a button.

You see what I'm getting at here? Sure things like books and television were revolutionary. But this is a whole different level, a new game. New rules. You're not bound to someone else's timetable, you don't need to leave your home. You don't even need to leave your bed. Just lay there and rot, scrolling.

Why do people scroll? Because it's addictive. It's meant to be addictive. Social Media companies hire designers that take inspiration from casinos and slot machines. Ever realize that when you drag along those infinite scroll pages, or you swipe down on the refresh? It's meant to keep you on the app, keep you scrolling, keep your attention. Everyone is trying to keep your attention. But when there's so much information available, and everyone's competing for your attention, there's not enough to go around. So your attention becomes weaker. You can't be bothered to sit through everyone's hour-long essays. Instead, you listen to the first minute. First thirty seconds. First ten seconds. If you aren't hooked, or something shinier presents itself, you leave.

Consider this. A child in the toy aisle. He sees a toy, runs over to it. But then out of the corner of his eye, he sees a different toy, so he goes to that one. Over and over, jumping from toy to toy. That's what it is. It's us being presented with an endless toy aisle. And we don't need to walk to the next toy, that's too much work. All we have to do is move our thumb. Or even just sit there and let autoplay take you.

Our minds are rotten, our attention spans drained. Why? Because we're presented with too much choice. Too many options. So what do we do? We reject these choices. This isn't some RETVRN nonsense. This is practical advice. Maybe there's a reason why so many people back then had better attention spans, because they didn't have everything available at an instant. They needed patience, they needed to wait. Their attention necessarily must be held. So what do we do? Try and emulate that. Remove all these excess choices. Turn off your YouTube watch history and recommendations, or entirely delete YouTube. Your social medias -- FaceBook, InstaGram, Twitter -- can all go. They're the same thing. Attention sinks from nothing corporations trying to sell you slop. Messaging apps like WhatsApp, SnapChat (Why are they always two words in one?) can stay, as long as you actually know the people you're messaging and don't doomscroll. But even then, just use texting where you can. Hell, a phone call is better. And what else? Well, what will you do for entertainment? Read, write, draw, listen to music -- CD or other physical, not overchoice -- and things like that. Genuine activities, not just sitting in front of this lightbox pretending there's actually a person there talking. We talk about how smart we are but we believe that a bunch of dots of light is really a person. That these electronic buzzes are words and speech. It's not.

How do you regain your attention? By not letting it get divided among ten million sources. The average person sees thousands of ads every day. Sure, a lot are in-person -- billboards, sides of buses, and so on -- but a LOT of them are online. Between every video, between pages on social media, and so on. Even the sponsored Google search results. Regain your attention span by not letting it get divded. By making sure that it stays intact, stays focused. But it's tricky. Takes months to rewire your brain, I've heard. But what choice do you have? Keep living like an impulse-driven inattentive zombie till you croak? Not a chance.