Nobody Can Pay Attention to Anything Anymore..
*Pulls out airpod while still scrolling my phone* Huh?
I think this goes without saying. Young people have a limited “attention economy”. Not only do you just have less mental African 12 year old cobalt miners than your peers 50 years ago, they get tired much easier. People just don’t pay attention anymore. Why is that?
Our world rewards skimming and punishes deep reflection
Modern technology is mostly to blame for this part. I’m reading a book called Shifting Focus that talks about how each medium for information has its own lens, like putting on special goggles. TV, for example, shapes the viewer into believing that the world is fast, that appearances matter most of all. Social Media and Youtube exist in a perpetual bidding war (more on that below) for your attention. It’s a market with endless merchants, all trying to catch your eye and keep it. The product is an arms race where everyone has to stay on the cutting edge of attention-grabbing or risk getting voted out by the algorithm. Google and other search engines don’t help this process either.
Screens are also worse for information retention biologically, in a way we don’t really understand yet, outside some principles like being able to engage other senses on a page. You’ll likely only retain 1-2 key thoughts from this article, assuming you read the whole thing (statistically you won’t).
Industries utilizing screens as their medium have capitalized on this, understanding that the money comes from facilitating skimming, summaries, “key takeaways” , and bottom lines up front. Videos are edited much tighter than they used to be, they’re designed for multi or off screen viewing (as in, able to be experienced without your full attention), punchlines are delivered quicker and in rapid fire, writers know they have less than 3 seconds to reel in a potential bite. The worst part is, painfully self aware Zoomers will mock this instead of understanding that it’s a real problem.
There’s even “productivity Gurus” that will suggest asinine solutions like fast-forwarding through the slow parts of movies at 3.5x speed so you can “be more productive” (Google it, its some Indian that privated the video before I could gif it here).
Below are some meme examples, but it’s not always Family Guy or Subway Surfers clips. It can be having a movie play while you scroll, scrolling while talking on the phone, etc.
Screens fundamentally re-arrange the way information is received and interpreted. If screens are the only way you receive information (which is becoming the case for Zoomies) then your thought process will resemble that.
I struggle with this sometimes, honestly. I’ll pull my phone out during a loading screen when playing video games, or if a movie doesn’t grab my attention in the first 20 minutes, I’ll catch myself saying “It’s okay to only look up during the exciting parts”. Screens will fundamentally rewire your brain to make you repeat “get to the point already” for the rest of your life.
Screens really just invert the maxim “the journey is more important than the destination”, except they teach you to arrive at as many destinations as possible, to absorb the “key takeaways” before being lured into setting off for another destination. As long as you can get there in under 8 seconds, because I’m getting impatient.
Attention is the new global currency
There have been a few “global currencies” over the course of recorded history, and they keep changing at a quicker pace:
Ancient History - Fall of the Roman Empire: Armies, precious metals / items
300 AD - 1500: Land, precious metals
1500 - 1850: Precious metals, other trade resources (spices, slaves, metals)
1850 - post WWII: Reserve notes for precious metals (direct exchange of a piece of paper for precious metals so you didn’t have to walk around with a sack of silver coins to go grocery shopping)
Post WWII - 1980s: Fiat currencies (pieces of paper that are valuable because the government tells you they are), sovereign and corporate debt. Le Petrodollar xD and other meme currencies not applicable -_-
1980s - 2010s: Information (about people, stocks, technology, gambling odds, natural resource locations, etc. In other words, it was typically more valuable to have a potential for making more money than just having a pile of cash already)
2000s - Today : Attention (attention from important people like investors, daycare workers when you’re surrounded by 5000 crying and stealing mulatto children, or in a high school when you’re surrounded by 5000 crying and stealing mulatto children).
Forget investing or politics for a moment. Have you ever been in a conversation where 5 people are talking at once and nobody is listening to you? Doesn’t it make you feel pathetic for just a moment? What options do you really have? You could raise your voice, but that would be DRAMATIC. What do most youngsters do? Well, they repeat it endlessly. Either what they were trying to say in the first place (whites) or attention-grabbing phrases to phish for attention-bites (nonwhites). This is really evident when watching nonwhites interact with one another because they’re so used to living in an “attention desert” where nobody ever pays full attention to anything. How many times have you seen a video of them where someone is spamming
Ayo, ayo!
holup, aye holup
yo Cheeeeeeell!! cheel cheeeel bro!!
nah hollup, nah for real now…
nah foreaaaaal! foreaaal ayooo!!
aint no way!!
Listen to how many times this lady repeats herself. Why? Because she knows everyone around her (including herself btw) is only half listening until she wins the auction for a 5 second block of 75% of their attention (they’re all watching Facebook Live for some reason).
What about when you’re really trying to get someone’s attention? What if it’s a good friend? There’s a whole social ecosystem around phones and the attention they command now. Is it rude to tell someone to put their phone away? Is it rude to look at what they’re looking at? What about checking your phone while someone else is talking?
The reality is, free markets breed competition. And the internet is a “free market” bidding war for your attention. Anyone who wants a shot of winning your attention has to convince you that they’re the best possible thing to have on your screen (or in front of your eyes) right now. Otherwise, you’re entirely incentivized to roll the dice again, and see who wants your attention bad enough. A book, a long prayer, an uninteresting conversation, none of these will ever pony up enough to stay in the attention auction long.
(Note: This is also how dating apps work, and why women appear aloof on them. They don’t want to identify a potential husband, they want someone to captivate them, to be worth leaving the screen on for longer them than a second. But not in a desperate or even obvious way (that would give them the ick), but in a passive “I’m interesting enough to return to” way. A single touch of the thumb banishes you forever, and breeds narcissism on their behalf. Women on dating apps feel like they can “grade” how well you did at motivating them to respond. Why would they ever message you back when they can roll the dice for someone more interesting?)
BOOB STIMULATION BREAK!!
People are just sicklier in general
The science is clear that exercise and healthy lifestyles help you to focus. Exercise is the spice of life. People today don’t exercise (generally speaking). They sleep less, and live unfulfilling lives. Nobody has any motivation, nobody enjoys being here, everyone wants to go back to their miserable depression fog. As you become unwell, being able to pay attention is one of the first things to go. Getting less than optimal sleep is the equivalent of walking around drunk your entire life. Who wants to read, learn, or even pay attention in that environment?
Most kids today live in divorced households. Already, their parents started a bidding war for their attention and love with cyclically larger birthdays and holidays, etc. As they got older, they started realizing that this world sucks and people are ultimately disposable (Thanks, George Carlin!). If you didn’t like someone, whether that’s someone in your group or a potential girl/boy/xey friend, just swipe left on them irl. Who cares? There’s no consequences for anything anymore. Why do I need stimulation from you, my parents, a book, a priest, when I have an endless conveyor belt of dopamine and stimulation served by a butler algorithm that will never expose me to negative emotions?
Great article Layne, I skimmed it and took your 3 bolded points at face value while scrolling YouTube shorts.
I jest, because frankly everything you’ve written resonated with me and just saddens me a bit for the future. I notice it with my 17 year old brother who talks like a black and repeats himself constantly fishing for sound bites. I notice it with my brown coworker who spends an 8 hour shift talking with AirPods in, with the scores of college students who can’t hold a conversation about anything deeper than last week.
Fascinating article, unfortunately makes it clear how my own attention span has suffered.