On Over-stimulation: Why the Human Attention Span is Dissipating

A Tale of Commitment & Duty

 As I speak, I am exhibiting the exact dangerous habits that I want to address. Quarreling with myself over how I wish to pass the time prior to hitting the hay, and considering the myriad of options I have to entertain myself in the meantime. I hold in my possession over 300 Penguin Classics titles, 30 of which I have begun reading, and none of which I have completed. It is patently obvious that my inability to fixate on and work through one narrative is related to a lack of patience, and perhaps even entitlement. This extends to my insatiable hunger for knowledge via the online medium, and how I cannot get through a single YouTube video without being enticed by 13 other adjacent thumbnails. They are distractions, deterrents, and pesky advertisements that disallow and neutralize focus. If you can at all relate to these mannerisms, then I would imagine you too would like to alleviate the tension and pressure. Seeing as I (like many others) watch a variety of videos on different topics, (Religion, Atheism, Gaming, Dermatology, Philosophy, Comics, Neurology, Physics etc.) I already have a difficult time selecting the first video I would like to watch. Different suggestions and recommendations draw my attention and provoke thought and wonder, inducing both joy and fear. The mirth is derived from the sheer beauty that comes along with learning, while fear is begotten from the daily recognition of my extreme ignorance. A classic clash and war between pride and humility, and the ensuing spoils that never fail to amaze and intimidate. However, amidst this fray's casualties resides a noble characteristic, torn down in its prime - concentration. It would already be an arduous task to demand a human being at this day and age to absorb all the content of one video, let alone to do so while constantly switching subject matter. Add that to the facility and haste with which one can alternate topics, and therein is a monumental problem. Sounds a bit like immediate satisfaction, or...something along those lines.

However, as opposed to reiterating the same case I have previously made regarding ease of access, I would like to discuss the obverse of the coin; the overwhelming amount of information I have at my disposal, and how human capacity is far too limited to manage it. I begin to feel flustered, overwhelmed, and quite frankly annoyed with how much there is to receive. I then flounder in my thought processes, forgetting how I said I was going to navigate the internet and accomplish my tasks. I would dare say that I have just described the symptoms experienced by a hefty portion of us; the only distinction exists within how we cope with them.

Now, I am quite aware that this phenomenon cannot simply be reduced to ineffable experience, because there more than likely is a cogent scientific and neurological argument to explain it. I recognize that there have been studies supporting the emission and fulmination of the dopamine chemical during satisfying social media exchanges, and how this experience is so addictive that its affects on the body resemble the high produced by cocaine. Albeit on a much smaller scale, of course. I have not researched what chemical reaction occurs during the frustration of over-stimulation, but I would conjecture that it may involve a cortisol release - a natural fluid triggered by excessive stress. Needless to say, I am making a layman's uneducated estimation here, and no one should take my guesswork too seriously. 

Herein lies the unfortunate consequence - our attention spans are declining rapidly. This behavior and physiological response to the virtual world is carrying over to the physical and the natural, making us out to be indecisive emotional wrecks. This will not do. Yet nature is indifferent to our grievances and suffering in this way, and will force us to adapt or perish. If like myself you do not wish to have your condition exacerbated so far before change is inevitably enabled, I have some ideas. Aside from the painfully obvious advice to monitor one's screen time and to prioritize, rather than to procrastinate and lollygag, I think another answer presupposes it. If you are anything like myself, your insatiable desire to retain and accrue knowledge can be debilitating. You constantly are reminded of how much you are completely unaware of, and how there is a subject in which you need to brush up your skills or familiarize yourself with from scratch. Be that as it may, it would be irresponsible to capitulate to this attitude or even to consider it to be innately entirely positive. My first meditative maxim (an entry for another time) proposes that one should always suspect and inspect one's own motives - and that no endeavor is exempt. Why do I have this affinity for information retention? Is it simply because I wish to improve myself by being better acquainted with the world around me, or is there a trace of vanity and insecurity incorporated? In short, am I afraid of looking silly, and just trying to impress somebody at a dinner party? I humbly submit that this is the case. I find within myself a deep-seeded insecurity about my own intellect, and how others will perceive my intelligence and personality in general. One does not have to abandon their intellectual pursuits because of this admission, they simply have to be aware of it as a possible influence behind their intentions. Upon having done so, I feel a sense of relief. It is not my job to have expertise in every single facet of academia, and it is extremely presumptuous for me to have thought that I could. In other words, get over yourself and try not to maintain such a high opinion of your abilities. I feel compelled to add how boring and tiresome it would become if someone were even nigh omniscient, for that would mark the end of the journey. The only phenomenon that currently possesses that power is death - a concern which is far too distant to warrant personal preoccupation. 

In essence, education should not be a chore with which one is burdened - especially after the completion of their degree. If one approaches it with this mindset, the beautiful process of enlightenment becomes an instrument of torture and coercion. Despite the subject matter (YouTube videos on make-up tutorials, leisure reading, academic assessments, etc.), one must first reckon with their human capacity, and not overestimate their own value. I used to take the phrase "Do what you can, you're only human!" as something meant to be flattering and a profession of approval and awe from my interlocutor. I now see that this is just as much a criticism as it is consolation. There is more hope and happiness to be drawn from immersion in fewer responsibilities, than there is in simultaneously managing an overabundance of them. The effort is more honorable as well - and I will expand upon that later. 

Then again, if you managed to reach the end of this screed, perhaps you're not as badly off as you once believed.

Yours truly, a primate who stopped writing this a quarter of the way through because he was distracted by videos of Hitchens' diatribe against Bill Clinton's presidency.