Comment by weedfroglozenge
7 days ago
Are we surprised?
Books were entertainment when that's all the world offered. Now whenever reading gets mentioned online, it's a "smarter way" to consume entertainment. Readers always give off a smug aura.
Technology has come along and with that visuals, audio, engagement.
The Tiktok Algorithm is this generation's Shakespeare. This isn't a bad thing.
This isn’t a bad thing? Kids nowadays have the attention span of puppies. It’s been shown extensively that doomscrolling, switching context every 30s isn’t good for the brain.
Books were already losing the fight on road trips once the gameboy came out - I can't imagine what having every movie, tv show, and song in a flashing touchscreen connected to the internet, why would I pick up a book that takes so much work to deliver fun when I can play AstroBlasters and watch tiktoks of war crimes
It’s absolutely a bad thing, and there’s extensive research demonstrating it
Perhaps the research is wrong though because our way of thinking has been "slow, controlled, non intensive".
Now that technology CAN give us content at faster speeds, isn't it better for the brains to change to adapt to the short form cycles? Otherwise you'll be left behind stuck on topic one when the new generation have absorbed 1, 2, 3, 4. etc.
I don't believe we can understand in depth faster than we used to.
When the volume of content goes up, the depth goes down.
What is happening is that we're consuming more and engaging with everything more superficially. I think that's a concerning trend.
Call me old fashioned but I do not think complicated topics can be summarised in a Tweet.