Attention Deficit Generation

The internet is a gigantic, it encompasses a large fraction of our lives, especially in the 21th century. Like every technology that has come along, the net has changed us in ways, we would have never imagined. But it does come with a large baggage of pros and cons, and unfortunately, attention deficiency is one of them.

Its not the internet who is at fault, it's us. Humans designed and made it, and we should blame ourselves for our own mistakes. There is a widespread 'disease' or 'change' in us, however may you'd like to define it. We are losing the ability to concentrate on reading text, read a book at lenght, or to listen at music at a stretch, or to focus on work (doesn't imply for everyone). Well, I figured out, that the 'instant' lifestyle we're perusing: instant messaging, instant search, instant replies, instant publication, etc, is changing us in subtle ways. We are unable to simply focus.

Inspirational ho-hum

A few days ago, I read an incredible blog post by Mark Mason (Here you go) about how your attention will be the skill in demand when you'll be at your working age. And the ability to catch one's attention is a key economic opportunity for the commercial and social world. Example? Magazine publication companies have a "attract time" of less than a second, and it can all make the difference between a sky high or a rock bottom sales. Of course it depends on quality on the content, but it need to grab your eyeballs before you can consider reading and purchasing. The attention span of humans, two generations ago were longer than ours, and the next generation has even a shorter one. The ones to survive and excel in this kamikaze (of attention and work efficiency), one should learn the art of finishing and focus on a task, not multitask around and keep everything in half eaten and unfinished.