ICM501 Blog

Blog by Jack Weiman

After reading the article “Your attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen.”, I re-learned a lot of things that I had once known, but simply forgot about. However, I also learned some new things as well. If you aren’t already conscious of the negative affect that screens have on us, then you might be living under a rock. I, along many others, am aware of how our attention spans have decreased significantly because of our constant use of screens and different forms of media. However, I still use technology and screens for hours of the day as does almost everyone. I’m not sure why we still continue to use screens so frequently when we know the problems that they cause. Maybe it’s because we are just following the rest of society or because we don’t have the willpower to stop using them. Or maybe it’s simply because we, as humans, are just an illogical species.

In this article, we learn about the “switch-cost effect” which basically means that when we are focusing on one thing and get distracted and check a text or go on social media, we aren’t just losing that time used on social media or messages, but we are actually losing the extra time that it takes us to refocus on what we were originally doing. Ironically enough, right before I read this section of the article, my sister started talking to me from the other room. She asked me if I had ever heard of botflies, which she must have seen a tiktok about. Sure enough, I opened a new tab and looked them up, and did a couple of minutes reading about them. When I went back to this article, I had to find the exact spot that I stopped reading at and then even skim through the previous paragraph again to make sure that I had taken in all of the information. I don’t think that there could have been a more prime example in relation to what I was reading about.

I think that this goes to show how easily distracted we get and how frequently it happens. I think that often times, we just fail to recognize it.

Link to Article: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/02/attention-span-focus-screens-apps-smartphones-social-media