Everyone's attention span is getting shorter. And we all know it, and we all have suspicions why. We just don't want to admit it.
Vaguely, I think people are aware of how social media and entertainment apps are sapping us of our ability to focus. So many people feel an itch for Instagram, Facebook, or whatever your media app of choice may be. And we know it pulls us away from things that should command our attention. Yet, we come back to these apps, day after day.
The reasons for this addiction is surprisingly straightforward. Some of the smartest people of the last two generations designed and developed these apps. And then these apps became powered by some of the strongest computers humanity has ever developed. It's man vs supercomputer, and man is losing.
Lots of people are starting to discuss how problematic our current media ecosystem is. Shoshana Zuboff coining the term Survellience Capitalism or the terms like the attention economy entering every day language are some examples of this growing discussion.
But despite the growing awareness of how bad these systems are, it seems like there's still a severe lack of action to fix any of it. I still see people walking with their phones out, staring down, everywhere I go. It's terrifying. We're all sleepwalking through life.
The issue, as I think Tristan Harris accurately captures, is that the paradigms that drive the design and development of our digital ecosystem are fundamentally flawed. These core values of a lot of tech ecosystems result in commodifying human experience and ignoring the negative harms these products and services may cause. It's a deeply tragic observation considering the zeitgeist of technology was to empower and bring abundance to as many people as possible. Now, it seems as if technology is being designed to strip away our humanity.
Being aware of this crisis for a few years now, I've taken small steps to try and adapt in my individual life to confront it. It began with deleting social media, and then adopting it back into my life in ways I considered healthy and balanced. I've tried to build back a habit of reading novels and non-fiction books, the longer the sitting I can read in, the better.
And these posts are the next iteration of trying to build and increase my "smallest unit of attention." The core issue of platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc, etc is that they are empowered by shortform content. The more punchy and attention grabbing the piece, the better it'll typically perform on these platforms.
And this is a non-starter for me. I don't agree that you get the same information quality in these short-form pieces than their long-form alternatives. Information density may be "lower" in things like books and long form podcasts, but you also get nuance and context.
So I'm moving away from writing short. I'm trying to move towards writing long. As in, I want to make the communications I make and the ideas I express demand more attention from readers. Deep, meaningful attention.
At least, that's the hope.