Been teaching for 32 years, and I agree that there are changes / issues / concerns without any doubt, but, for me, your statement is a bit too strong as the situation is much more nuanced / complex than that...The attention span of younger people decreases drastically thanks to TikTok, though. I have to deal with young people and what I notice is that a lot of them don't even have the nerve, patience or will to listen more than 1 minute to a song.
1) Many studies have looked at this over the past 20 years with very mixed results...including the distinct possibility that some brains are now actually assessing and analysing information at a much faster rate than in previous generations.
2) Attention span is now quite possibly NOT actually decreasing as some believe, but is actually becoming much more contextual / task dependent...(Some studies suggest that the concept of an "average attention span" is meaningless because how much attention we apply to a task depends on the task's demands).
3) Many studies show that - Regular social media use DEFINITELY has a negative impact on our attention span...rapidly changing content etc reduce our capacity to pay attention...we become used to quick sound bites and short videos, but they also show that this effect is NOT necessarily long-lasting, doesn't necessarily cross-over into other areas of life, possibly has a very small positive affect on quick analysis skills.
Yep, I share your concerns regarding the negative impact of the internet (social media in particular), but I think it needs very careful analysis and very well thought out responses to try and improve it as it's all quite complex. My biggest issues with it all are probably the algorithmically created bubbles people live in online and the increase in binary (and quite often quite extreme) views that tend to lead people down the many readily available conspiracy theory rabbit holes + its hugely addictive properties.
Met up with 2 former pupils in the last year...both in their mid 20s and both bloody obsessed with social media...particularly TikTok! Watching them on their phones, you'd think they were both brainless idiots who could NOT possibly achieve anything worthwhile in life...it was so bloody irritating sitting with them at times!
One is currently writing his first novel and released his 2nd solo album a few years ago....plays all the instruments on it / sings on it / recorded and produced it all himself.
The other successfully studied at the Royal Academy of Music and now plays in a major orchestra here in the UK...practises his instrument 3 - 4 hours each day!
Quicker answer (I'm not renowned for them) would've been:
Yes, I agree there are serious concerns about social media, but it's complicated and needs a careful multifaceted solution.
Statistics: Posted by ChameleonMusic — Sat Dec 14, 2024 5:23 pm