So a view I see a lot nowadays is that attention spans are getting shorter, especially when it comes to younger generations. And the growing success of short form content on Tiktok, Youtube and Twitter for example seems to support this claim. I have a friend in their early 20s who regularly checks their phone (sometimes scrolling Tiktok content) as we’re watching a film. And an older colleague recently was pleased to see me reading a book, because he felt that anyone my age and younger was less likely to want to invest the time in reading.
But is this actually true on the whole? Does social media like Tiktok really mould our interests and alter our attention? In some respects I can see how it could change our expectations. If we’ve come to expect a webpage to load in seconds, it can be frustrating when we have to wait minutes. But to someone that was raised with dial-up, perhaps that wouldn’t be as much of an issue. In the same way, if a piece of media doesn’t capture someone in the first few minutes they may be more inclined to lose focus because they’re so used to quick dopamine hits from short form content. Alternatively, maybe this whole argument is just a ‘kids these days’ fallacy. Obviously there are plenty of young adults that buck this trend.
I dropped reading for most of my adult life, I had a hard time with it as a child too before I got diagnosed but my symptoms were a lot less severe then too so it was still easier than it currently is. Im poor and don’t have health insurance so I’m unmedicated which IS NOT fun lol. But I’m making it (barely) work.
The witcher is a series I’ve wanted to get into for a while, glad to hear the books are as great as they sound! The games are fantastic so I’m sure the source material only gets better. Mycology is fascinating topic as well. I’m an amateur grower and forager when I can bother to get off my ass. It’s a pretty dope subject and an even doper hobby if you’re in the market for one.
If you want a fun YouTube recommendation, Crime pays but botany doesn’t is a good channel. He’s an Italian from Chicago with a lot of passion for ecology and reducing mans influence on nature. Most of his videos are just him walking around the woods and pointing out cool plants lol. But he has this guy on his videos on a semi-regular basis, Adam Rockefeller. His specialty is on psylocibin mushrooms of all varieties and there’s some really enlightenimg info on them in those videos. From field identification and testing to genomic sequencing and plenty of other stuff. The guys a savant. He doesn’t seem to have a large independent presence online but it’s always a pleasant surprise when he shows up. I have a suspicion you would enjoy it