Are we losing our ability to concentrate?

[Priran]

only when I read kuya's posts

[Kuya]

I missed you.

[0ni0n]

get a room, you two.

[Kuya]

get a room, you two.

Me and Priran prefer to let everyone see us go down on eachother.

[Kuya]

Usually for just 30 minutes though since we lose concentration afterwards.

[Kaylia]

Tomorrow is my last final (and hardest one for the matter), but I'm here procrastinating. Fuck...


On topic, I noticed that as well, and figured it had something to do with internet/video game/shitty TV. It's the biggest difference with the previous generation and most likely the culprit..

[bigrougabagel]

No way! I can whatever you were talking about with the best of em. Do I get that cookie now?

[Shade]

It depends.

I can have an extremely long attention span, but whatever it is has to be worth my attention, and sometimes its a matter of getting into the zone. I can drop into a novel for 3 hours no problem, but a textbook, even something I'm interested in learning about, and I'm trying not to fall asleep 3 pages in.

I can spend 20 hours painting something, but I can also spend a third of that compulsively wandering the internet and refreshing forums. I find that it helps to distract at least one of my other senses - listen to music or a podcast, drink a cup of coffee. But that kind of thing is not something you want to build a dependency on.

[Headspace]

I find my self constantly telling myself to get off WoW and focus on school work, then I can play WoW for longer after it gets done.

So I log off and end up not doing either.


Online classes just further this cycle.

[Kaylia]

I find my self constantly telling myself to get off WoW and focus on school work, then I can play WoW for longer after it gets done.

So I log off and end up not doing either.


Online classes just further this cycle.

I recently found out that going to the library work well when I need to study. Just make sure to not pick a desk with a computer nearby. It's the best way to get thing done imo.

[Headspace]

I recently found out that going to the library work well when I need to study. Just make sure to not pick a desk with a computer nearby. It's the best way to get thing done imo.

Well this past semester, all my big papers were due for an online class. Wasn't really studying, it was typing the fucking thing.

But its summer now, so who gives a fuck.

[guartz]

and yet, we can spend hours looking on one spot waiting for a virtual monster to spawn?

[Kaylia]

and yet, we can spend hours looking on one spot waiting for a virtual monster to spawn?

Precisely why we camp it. It's mindless.

Studying hours to score a A, or doing nothing for hours and score a ridill? Sadly, the 2nd option is more gratifying most of the time..

[Ziero]

I got halfway through all the quotes and then skipped to the bottom...

I did the same thing....after I realized how much crap the article is filled with. Boring crap is boring, and not wanting to do your homework is something that has been plaguing students of all ages and grades since the first schools were made. I know I certainly don't have problems concentrating on something...if it's something I actually want to focus on. That article, not something I care to focus on.

i also find that i can't always concentrate on porn, sometimes i just skip along till i find really interesting parts.

Isn't that how you're supposed to watch porn?

[amentis]

I've had ADD for as long as I can remember, even before I got into videogames/MMOs.

I've always had issues with concentrating on things I don't like, etc etc.
HOWEVER, FFXI made this 10,000x worse.

It completely ruined any ability for me to play any type of game that takes more than 30 minutes or so a match.

I'm used to being able to talk on vent, do an event in FFXI, be on firefox, be on aim/msn/yahoo, have the tv on playing brawl or watching the tv, and listening to music.

Now I bug out after like, 20 minutes of non-ffxi game playing.
It sucks. :<

More on topic though, we're definitely losing our ability to concentrate, and it's not our fault. It's the media, it's the schools, and it's intentional, imo.
Take schools for example. The way they teach math is a little bit of each subject, every year. At my old HS (college prep), we did a year of algebra, a year of geometry, a year of trig, and a year of calc.

The way TV is, it bombards us with 25 different things at once, commercials rape our attention spans, news networks throw tons of information at you in short bites, while throwing even more at the bottom of the screen ticker.

I don't think it's the internet so much as google and articles that has also contributed to the rape of our attention spans, but more the instant messaging clients.
Talking to 20 different people in tiny phrases/sentences via text message, or IM really does a number on your ability to focus in on something lengthy.

Personally, if I find interest in something, I can hone in on it and do well, but it is virtually impossible for me to focus on something I don't find interest in.

I know this is a wall of text, and I don't really know where I was going with it, but I felt the need to rant a bit.
Hopefully though, people won't be villifying the internet for our loss of concentration, and realize that it's all media.

[Takedown3]

the things we are losing are focus for are going to be obsolete soon thats why

reading now?
watching tv/movies soon?

way of the dodo baby

our new intelligence is going to be based on how fast and efficiently we can multitask (read: how many tabs we can have open at one time)

[Suburbanelite]

Interesting. Very interesting. I've actually noticed that I've felt like an idiot for the past couple of years, and I was very well-spoken and attentive before now. I just attributed it to the POT! Fuck. Maybe the world was hit with some kind of brainwave-suppressive forcefield that will slowly turn us all into brain-dead zombies? Zombification sounds fun. Or it's just that we all have 2,000,000 possible things we could be doing at once (Thanks internet) and our brain wants to do them all, but there's no way we can.

A good example? WoW just got an add-on version of the game Peggle... and holy shit. I can never have any downtime in that game any more without playing FUCKING PEGGLE. So addictive. Who will save us from stupefying technology run rampant?

[Lurking Badger]

Are you sure it's not just the process of aging?
I don't know, in the 19th century it was the novel turning people's brains into mush and destroying their capabilities of logical thought...

[Khajit]

It has to do more with how the information is presented i've always thought.
Take television for example and it's abundance of commercials. Because of this you get at most 5 minutes of a singe line of though(aka the main program) and then you're bombarded with messages that last 30 seconds each. So really your thought process has adapted to the fact that all information is complete in 30 seconds. Even in a news report you dont get any sort of lengthy information. You get some information and before you have time to think they skip to the next one.

[Galkaeater]

no we are just getting more things to concentrate