3 ms·

Where I perceive a tendency to ADHD is in myself. I used to enjoy long in-depth journalism, now after a few paragraphs I get the urge to open another tab. I use

Where I perceive a tendency to ADHD is in myself. I used to enjoy long in-depth journalism, now after a few paragraphs I get the urge to open another tab. I used to enjoy long plodding movies by Kubrick and Malick, now when I watch a 60 minute television drama I keep pausing it playing with my phone. It's like my mean-time-till-context-switch has gotten shorter out of habit.

michaelchisari 10y ago
I've found the same situation, and it's why it's led me back to printed books (or e-books without wifi). Everything gets turned off, and I read. Every time I do, I get that same urge to "open a tab", power up my phone, and start playing around. Eventually the urge does go away, but I have to create a certain artificial environment for myself to force it to.
cylinder 10y ago
Same. I can't even watch a movie at home without having my phone out for the slow parts.
WA 10y ago
Maybe you just became older. Movies, books, shows - to some extend its always the same stuff repeated over and over.
Falkon1313 10y ago
I feel similar - being used to the distraction of switching between multiple tabs while waiting for a page to load, while a video plays on the second monitor, scanning the feeds on my phone on breaks. I can't focus to read a book and a movie takes days to watch. But it's not the internet. I used the internet for years without any attention-span decrease or distraction features. When it was gopher, telnet, IRC, email, and BBSes etc. running on a DOS PC with no multitasking. (OK, I cheated, I had a TSR that let me switch between up to 3 programs, but RAM was limited and you were only using one at a time.) It's the combination of multitasking OSes, putting a lot more things on the screen(s), and ubiquitous pocket supercomputers. That's led us to a new standard way of living where we're always trying to do several things at once and expecting context switches every few seconds. That makes it hard to do anything deeply and fully, or focus on anything for a lengthy time; it feels unnatural.
digi_owl 10y ago
After discovering the Column Reader Firefox extension i have found long form articles online much more readable. It converts an article into screen height pages, much like reading a magazine article. And i think way too many TV drams these days fail the "show don't tell" check. Meaning that you get two talking heads yapping at each other in a static shot more often than not.

michaelchisari 10y ago

I've found the same situation, and it's why it's led me back to printed books (or e-books without wifi). Everything gets turned off, and I read. Every time I do, I get that same urge to "open a tab", power up my phone, and start playing around. Eventually the urge does go away, but I have to create a certain artificial environment for myself to force it to.

cylinder 10y ago

Same. I can't even watch a movie at home without having my phone out for the slow parts.

WA 10y ago

Maybe you just became older. Movies, books, shows - to some extend its always the same stuff repeated over and over.

Falkon1313 10y ago

I feel similar - being used to the distraction of switching between multiple tabs while waiting for a page to load, while a video plays on the second monitor, scanning the feeds on my phone on breaks. I can't focus to read a book and a movie takes days to watch. But it's not the internet. I used the internet for years without any attention-span decrease or distraction features. When it was gopher, telnet, IRC, email, and BBSes etc. running on a DOS PC with no multitasking. (OK, I cheated, I had a TSR that let me switch between up to 3 programs, but RAM was limited and you were only using one at a time.) It's the combination of multitasking OSes, putting a lot more things on the screen(s), and ubiquitous pocket supercomputers. That's led us to a new standard way of living where we're always trying to do several things at once and expecting context switches every few seconds. That makes it hard to do anything deeply and fully, or focus on anything for a lengthy time; it feels unnatural.

digi_owl 10y ago

After discovering the Column Reader Firefox extension i have found long form articles online much more readable. It converts an article into screen height pages, much like reading a magazine article. And i think way too many TV drams these days fail the "show don't tell" check. Meaning that you get two talking heads yapping at each other in a static shot more often than not.