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Isn't the diminishing attention span the more conventional term to express the authors point, rather than "compression"? I think it was in culture of narcissism
by lbrito 1y ago
Isn't the diminishing attention span the more conventional term to express the authors point, rather than "compression"? I think it was in culture of narcissism, a book from the late 1970s, that the author (Christopher Lasch) showed some research that the American attention span was rapidly diminishing since the 1960s or something. Its an old phenomenon and has predictably gone much worse the more attention-sucking tech we get.
I see people of all ages saying stuff like "I don't have the patience to watch a full movie uninterrupted". I think its the same thing.
PS. didn't have time to read the huge article, can you summarise?
- unstatusthequo 1y agotldr summary of the article for those who need compression: - Compression culture reduces rich experience to bullet points, treating depth as inefficiency. It ignores how oral traditions, medieval manuscript copying and university disputations built understanding through immersion, repetition and shared struggle. - Today’s attention economy rewards fast consumption and skimming, reshaping our brains for distraction. True growth—skill, wisdom, character—emerges only through patient repetition, sitting with complexity and the struggle that resists compression.