Earlier this year, we
read an article for this class having to do with the effect of the internet on
our brains – that it may be changing our brain structure to make our attention
spans shorter. Ever since I read this, I
cannot help but notice how short my own attention span is. I would link this article, but I’m too lazy
to go through my email and find it (I’ll take this opportunity to blame my
short attention span – thanks, internet).
There is rarely a time during the day when I am not constantly consuming
some useless information, whether it come from the internet or the television or
some other media device. Reddit is the
one example that stands out foremost in my mind – every link delivers a quick,
momentary jolt of excitement, which fades away as quickly as it came, prompting
me to click the next link – and so on, and so forth. Ever since I have become conscious of this
effect, I cannot help but notice it everywhere – I love getting these quick
jolts of excitement from seeing a picture or reading a quick news article. It rewards having a short attention span by giving you a little bit of excitement for everything you click. Things that require periods of focused
attention, like reading a book, make me physically anxious – I feel like I’m missing out on something, like I could be
doing so much more. Of course it’s not
true – for everything on Reddit that was a genuinely piece of content, I have
to sift through hundreds of links that contain genuinely crappy content. Look at the front page right now – it’s all
stupid pictures that will give you a quick laugh, and then will proceed to
immediately forget. Maybe there are a
few news articles about things that are going on right now, but many of them
are misleading, not presenting the whole story, or something that you will
forget about five minutes after reading it.
Yet I and many others still go on there when we’re bored, or to
procrastinate or whatever.
Before
the internet, it was hard to get information – you had to go to a library or
have access to someone who was knowledgeable.
Now, we have the opposite problem – we have access to an abundance of
information, but most of it is not worth your time. Most Facebook, Reddit, or online news posts
are not worth reading at all, because they contain useless information that
will not improve your life. We just keep
consuming it because we get a rush when we get to that 5% of content that is
genuinely good and worth consuming. Why
aren’t we alright with consuming less?
For me personally, I struggle with what to do with my time – time when I
am not doing anything feels like a waste for me. But I think I could use some time where I
just separate myself from this information stream coming from television,
computers, and cell phones and just think. When I do, I find that I am really able to
relax. After the anxiety about being
disconnected goes away, I can collect my thoughts. I have to learn to be alright with doing
nothing sometimes – it is often better than consuming useless content on the
internet, which I used to consider to be “doing something.” I find that trying to read for pleasure also
helps me to increase my attention span – I made it halfway through The
Brothers Karamazov this semester, just reading it for pleasure and not for
any class. I intend to finish it,
because aside from being a genuinely great novel, reading a long book helps me
practice increasing my attention span for long periods of time, which helps me
do things like study for a test, or learn a hobby. Obviously, the internet is a great thing, but
I definitely find that it encourages having a shorter attention span. I am going to be a little more careful about
that from now on.
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