Have we lost all ability to focus?

[Killed_by_Death]

only the Borg have a collective mind

no one has the patience to listen to albums anymore, it's just people flipping through iTunes (or whatever) listening to the first minute of every song. moral of the story, get to the chorus quicker.

 

[JRA]

Is this a sign that our collective brains are slowly falling apart? Or just that people are becoming illiterate?

not sure of the difference these days. our 'devices' (and the information --- ?) deliver more than our anatomical systems were meant/wired to deal with --- i just imagine that i'm typing a coherent message....the rest is up to you! good luck!

 

[knumbskull]

More competition = better quality. It's as true in economics as it is in what we do on the internet.

I respectfully disagree... have you seen the internet lately??

 

[MJ5150]

I sure have seen the issue @project_c mentions with e-mail.
For that reason, I now only ask one question in an e-mail to someone. If you ask more, they don't get answered.

-Mike

 

[devo_stevo]

I sent someone a text just yesterday telling them that I was going to have to reschedule something. i used complete words and sentences. The response I got was "That fine with".

What is that? He's a teacher, by the way.

 

[BassPilot]

Interesting thread topic (and a few responses).
I think some of the issues with text messages or email from an iPad/Android device is autocorrect (which it ain't most of the time). But that's also people not reviewing what they've typed before hitting the send button. So attention span probably has something to do with that - or people just don't care what their messages convey.

 

[Old Garage-Bander]

There’s been a lot of talk about the internet, phones and people losing the ability to pay attention to anything for longer than about a second. Now I’m no grammar nazi, but I’m noticing a weird thing happening both here and in my daily life. Almost every thread I read here on TB has a few posts that have words missing. So people will write whatever they’re writing, but miss out a word here and there. It's everywhere, like an epidemic. Meanwhile, people I’m emailing reply without having read the email, or they misread parts of the email and reply with nonsense, or again, reply and miss out words for no reason. People are not only skim-reading, they’re skim-writing. Is this a sign that our collective brains are slowly falling apart? Or just that people are becoming illiterate?

Yup! You got it about right.

BTW ru go 2 din @ sev or ate?

 

[saltydude]

Yes the art and skill of script is fading away. I was taught penmanship in third grade. It's no longer taught anymore. Texting opened up a whole new word of abbreviations and urban code.
Heck I work with a guy that cannot READ cursive writing. No chance in hell of writing in it.

 

[MJ5150]

You win a biscuit.

Can I have a biscuit? With gravy?
That may mean something different to you UK people, so here is a picture of what I am expecting....

-Mike

 

[slobake]

yup

 

[ONYX]

Or just that people are becoming illiterate?

Yes---along with a severely diminished level of comprehension.

 

[Grumry]

Can I have a biscuit? With gravy?
That may mean something different to you UK people, so here is a picture of what I am expecting....

-Mike

What kind of barbarian only gets 3 buscuit halves? He left half of one cold and lonely by the stove!

 

[MJ5150]

What kind of barbarian only gets 3 buscuit halves? He left half of one cold and lonely by the stove!

I saw that too, but didn't feel like finding another picture.

-Mike

 

[Steve]

Nature, nurture. We are all very much products of our environment. Focusing on one thing for any extended period of time is something that would get you killed and eaten pretty quickly around the watering hole in front of your cave. It goes against the entire evolutionary process and we aren't nearly as far or as long out of the trees as we like to think we are.

No wonder the ability is hard to gain, hard to maintain and easy to lose. The current trend of being a mile wide, an inch deep, twitchy and skittish of thought is probably far more compatible with what mother nature thinks we need to survive and probably accounts for how effective appealing to that is.

IMHO

 

[DirtDog]

I don't even watch movies all the way to the

 

[Funky Ghost]

What kind of barbarian only gets 3 buscuit halves? He left half of one cold and lonely by the stove!

And call me old fashioned but I would want some hash browns and a couple eggs for bread dippin yolky (sic) goodness.

 

[ZenG]

I think half of it is just laziness. People don't want to actually have to use their brain or work at something anymore.

If it requires effort, they're out of there..because it means they have to leave their self-entitled narcissistic mental comfort zone...horror of horrors.

 

[hrodbert696]

I don't doubt there have been effects on attention span from TV and the internet. Lincoln and Douglas debated politics ALL DAY LONG, took a break for dinner, came back and kept debating - to the attention of a rapt audience the whole time. We think a couple hours is a marathon now.

But I don't think the specific phenomenon the OP mentions has to do with lack of attention span. I think it's that people can't type as fast as they think and words drop out. In traditional writing you would go back and edit what you wrote before it went to a publisher, or an editor would look at it before putting it in a publication. But on the internet, we hit "send" and generally launch our first drafts into the void.

 

[RBrownBass]

What kind of barbarian only gets 3 buscuit halves? He left half of one cold and lonely by the stove!

That's the half that's going to tell the story of how he watched three of his pals get chewed up and doused with stomach acid

 

[D M C]

Here's a funny video of a cat on a roomba: