Can you quantify or prove that we are more distracted?
"The early chapters of Stolen Focus by Johann Hari provides a good overview of the research, which shows that people are increasingly switching their attention from one thing to another"
The most important part, for me, was this bit:
> What they discovered is there is one mechanism that can make this happen every time. You just have to flood the system with more information. The more information you pump in, the less time people can focus on any individual piece of it.
So it is not obvious at all which effects dominate and if this isn't just the same drivel that Gessner spouted in the 1500's about how books and the printing press were going to create an information overload and ruin our attention
- https://slate.com/technology/2010/02/a-history-of-media-tech...
Going back to the subject of contemporary education, one could also speculate that ~20 years of schooling replacing ~20 years of apprenticeship and mastery of a single craft makes the ability to resist distraction worse. Perhaps teaching someone to make wagon wheels for 20 years makes them better able to focus on a single thing than teaching them to learn all sorts of different subjects for a few hours each day?
People like to look back at previous generation's moral panics, but I can't help but think there was an element of truth to many of them.
What is the element of truth then? What was the negative impact of the printing press and how did it end society and our ability to pay attention to things?
It's so strange to have someone hear that their concern has existed for hundreds of years, the doom and gloom never materialized, and yet still double down on the same thing. What besides your intuition or the fact you share the same fear actually would lead you to think that this time it's different and tiktok is the technology that'll ruin us?
I mean, didn't it for some people? The church lost their ability to be the sole source of the bible once printing presses started churning out books. So the church lost a significant aspect of their influence on the public.
In effect when there are people screaming about societal changes it typically means they stand to lose some position of power they currently hold because of it.
It's not about a technology being able to displace power away from a specific organization or not. That's not an argument anyone was making here.
That's quite a leap from what I said. I took the stance that there is an element of truth, or at the very least a valid concern. Not that the printing press was going to end society. The tone of the linked article is definitely dismissive, something akin to "why be concerned, look at all these similar panics. We're doing just fine."
>"His warnings referred to the seemingly unmanageable flood of information unleashed by the printing press."
This is exactly what happened. The printing press was fundamental to the Catholic/Protestant schism, enabled political pamphleteering, and is what caused newspapers to come into existence. Yes, society survived this, but the concern was no doubt real and realized. As for "the doom and gloom never materialized", what is fake news and misinformation but an unmanageable flood of information?
>"or the fact you share the same fear actually would lead you to think that this time it's different and tiktok is the technology that'll ruin us?"
You're putting words in my mouth. I do not think TikTok is going to ruin society, but I do believe it is having a negative effect on many individuals within it. You had mentioned "doubling down on the same thing", but I think that is misplaced. Superficially the concern is the same, but the cause is different. There hasn't been anything like TikTok and algorithmic recommendation in the history of civilization, so it would be wrong to dismissively assume the panic will pass and concerns about its effects are unfounded and unwarranted because that's what happened with books, radio, television, and so on.
For some reason they seem to think it will work when the book is electronic and small enough.
Do you mean a stationary exercise bike?
I don't read books on those because I am usually sweating and I don't want to get that on the book. Also, most paperbacks are pretty springy, so sometimes I need to have one hand holding them open, or some kind of clip system on the bike.
iPads or Kindles don't have these problems, so I can certainly imagine using them instead. I don't, probably because of an irrational aversion to getting anything from the grungy gym on my personal devices.
My unscientific, purely vibes based take is that the ubiquity of the smartphone has created such widespread severe dopamine addiction that basic human judgment and even self preservation instinct is increasingly impaired.
You may be surprised to learn people do text and bike. I’ve done it on occasion when running late to a meetup with friends.
It’s … not very safe.
[1] https://amsterdamfox.com/news/the-number-of-bicycles-per-cap... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/27/dutch-cyclists...