The attention-span myth
Can technology erode something that doesn’t exist? That’s the question that journalist Virginia Heffernan raises in an article for the New York TImes Magazine.
“Whether the Web is making us smarter or dumber, isn’t there something just unconvincing about the idea that an occult “span†in the brain makes certain cultural objects more compelling than others? So a kid loves the drums but can hardly get through a chapter of “The Sun Also Risesâ€; and another aces algebra tests but can’t even understand how Call of Duty is played. The actions of these children may dismay or please adults, but anyone who has ever been bored by one practice and absorbed by another can explain the kids’ choices more persuasively than does the dominant model, which ignores the content of activities in favor of a wonky span thought vaguely to be in the brain.
So how did we find ourselves with this unhappy attention-span conceit, and with the companion idea that a big attention span is humankind’s best moral and aesthetic asset?”
