Is the Internet destroying your attention span?

[Bulbasaur]

I read this article about how heavy Internet users have a harder time focusing on reading. It caught my attention with a title "Statistically, you’re only going to read 28 percent of this", which I honestly wouldn't have doubted until I felt challenged to read the whole thing.

In addition, students have been reported as way more likely to use Google for research (94%) than textbooks (18%) or a local library (16%) for schoolwork. At first thought, I thought, "Why is that negative?". But than I realized the reason for students preferring Wikipedia or Google is that they can just skim through their results and find a sentence or two that is relevant, in opposed to actually reading and analyzing the information.

I did some thinking after reading this article. I think the Internet has been destroying my attention span. I used to be a big reader when I was younger, mainly elementary school. Nowadays, I never pick up a book for fun. I picked up a copy of Fahrenheit 451 a week or so ago, a book I really enjoyed in 9th grade. I have still been enjoying it as much as I did before, but I do find it harder to stay focused reading it.

What do you think about this? Opinions? Do you think the Internet has affected you in this way?

[Caunadan]

yes

attention span too short to write longer post

[[Desolate Divine]]

I read this article about how heavy Internet users have a harder time focusing on reading. It caught my attention with a title "Statistically, you’re only going to read 28 percent of this", which I honestly wouldn't have doubted until I felt challenged to read the whole thing.

In addition, students have been reported as way more likely to use Google for research (94%) than textbooks (18%) or a local library (16%) for schoolwork. At first thought, I thought, "Why is that negative?". But than I realized the reason for students preferring Wikipedia or Google is that they can just skim through their results and find a sentence or two that is relevant, in opposed to actually reading and analyzing the information.

I did some thinking after reading this article. I think the Internet has been destroying my attention span. I used to be a big reader when I was younger, mainly elementary school. Nowadays, I never pick up a book for fun. I picked up a copy of Fahrenheit 451 a week or so ago, a book I really enjoyed in 9th grade. I have still been enjoying it as much as I did before, but I do find it harder to stay focused reading it.

What do you think about this? Opinions? Do you think the Internet has affected you in this way?

Whilst it may have negatively affected it, I feel like my attention span is affected more by how much my mind is 'on the job', being my youth work. Whilst I don't mind this so much, I struggle to tune out, and most of the time, I am working on something or other for youth work, and whilst I'd love to be reading chunks of information, usually I need an answer then and there. When I was younger and had less responsibility, I loved to read, and to a degree I still do. However these days, I don't anywhere near as much because I can't multitask as opposed to TV or movie. If I have nothing to do I will sit down for a few hours and smash out a book or two, but mostly my attention span is impacted by my inability to think about anything but youth work

[Neo Emolga]

Before the internet, getting research for essays and reports was HARD. I remember having to go to the library and HOPING they had a book that related to the subject matter I was doing a report on. Sometimes you got lucky, other times you did not and the only available books were at other libraries. It was an ordeal just to get started with the darn report, never mind write up the whole thing before the deadline crept up on you like an assassin. The other part of it was having to read the book and then do the report on it. You almost never had enough time to read the whole thing so I usually ended up skimming anyway.

Attention span may be a part of it, but I think there's also the element that we want things done FAST. Why go to the library and hope you find the holy grail of a book you need when huge chunks of what you need are already online? You can find heaps of info in seconds whereas before, it could take days to track down the stuff and you wouldn't get everything you were hoping for.

I think our attention span is getting destroyed because we expect way, way too much out of everyone in terms of time, energy, experience, and monetary investment. Everything has to be done better, faster, cheaper, and I think just about everyone is already being pushed beyond their limits. We ignore a hundred successes and instead grieve for just one failure.

[Scytherwolf]

I'm not sure if it's caused any problems for me. My entire life I've basically had problems paying attention to certain things, but on the other hand, if I was interested in something, I could do it for hours without wanting to stop. I read a lot so I don't have problems reading books or anything, but I certainly get into moods where I can't seem to focus on much of anything, internet related or not. But I've been that way since I was little (before I used the internet) so I don't think the internet is necessarily to blame for that.