As you enter that next reminder in your phone, do you find yourself questioning why your brain seems to be overloaded all the time and why simple reminders like “defrost the chicken” seems to need the mental backup of being entered in a technological device?
Attention and Memory Trends
New research suggests society is rapidly changing due to limited collective attention space. This shift is attributed to insufficient room for attention in our society. Our mental reserves once sufficed, but now we feel we’re slipping, struggling to maintain order in our minds. We used to manage our mental reserves well, but now it feels like we’re regressing. New research indicates a rapid societal shift due to limited collective attention. However, self-criticism regarding cognitive abilities may be unwarranted.
Attention Overload: Social Acceleration
This is happening on a societal level. Researchers at the Technical University of Denmark provide evidence for the ‘social acceleration’ phenomenon, supporting the hypothesis of narrowing attention spans. The study suggests that our collective attention span is shrinking due to the overwhelming influx of information and constant connectivity. The rapid proliferation of information and constant connectivity overwhelm attention spans in today’s society. It’s a consequence of advancing technology and pervasive social media. The overflow of information intensifies competition for attentional space, impacting our collective attention span as a society. This phenomenon is supported by research indicating a rapid change in our societal attention dynamics.
This acceleration of information means that there’s always something new to mentally digest, and it causes us to change focus and divert attention in an unprecedented way. This has led to the exhaustion of our collective attention span, which as therefore led to a narrowing of attention. It’s not necessarily based on the merit of what we should be paying attention to—it’s that we’re losing interest much faster than we have before because our brains are trying to make space for that next incoming material.
With only so much mental resource devoted to attention, we’re all a little strung out when it comes to our attention these days. It’s not that we’re reliant on our technology and can’t think for ourselves anymore; it’s that we’re now experiencing how our technology and our all-access passes to information has changed all of us.
References
Lorenz-Spreen, P., Mønsted, B.M., Hövel, P. et al. Accelerating dynamics of collective attention. Nat Commun10, 1759 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09311-w
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