Do you have difficulty focussing on the task at hand when confronted with notifications and ads while using your computer?
This article explains why, and gives a few useful hints for having a distraction -free experience
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I enjoyed this article. I wrote a blog post a decade ago lamenting how was I supposed to read a news article while there were pictures with link outs to other articles between every paragraph. How the hell am I supposed to focus on the article at hand?
I initially discounted it seeing the ABC link. AU’s ABC is different than ours. Our ABC’s website articles are short form engagement driving stuff generally speaking.
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It is our government owned national broadcaster.
Has its problems, but its scientific writers produce an occasional quality article.
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Ah that makes sense. I love the BBC and CBC. BBC’s nature shows especially the ones with David Attenborough are my favorites!
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You might enjoy “Flight of the Condor”
They are youtube copies. I cant find part 3?
Found 3
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I remember in the 1970s and 80s, the mania over our shortening attention span from TV. I recall laughing at this stuff as some overstated hokum. Now, I am older, and I can see just how much technology truly diverts us. Seemingly every second of the day, when we walk, we’re just standing, when we drive, when we’re in bed, when we go to the bathroom, our devices are like some addictive ball and chain. It makes television look like a book of classic literature. I have no solutions outside of going back to 1989, and let’s be honest, that’s not happening. I’m old and I’m as thoroughly addicted as everbody else.
And while I agree that we’re drowning in questionable information, so much of it, unfortunately, is subjective and people’s opinions. And it seems so much of it is tied to social media. One thing I have done is I cancelled most all of my social media accounts in the past two years or in one case keep only and strictly for family. And when it comes to the news, I go out of my way to actually look it up from those sites so I know what I’m getting into and who will be trying to convince me of something ahead of time ( vs. finding out about through someone else’s rage bait).
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I went to Uni in the 1960’s … no electronic devices, slide rules, mechanical calculators, use the library to find info. It was a slow world. In my last couple of uni years I found computers … it changed things … i think it was good discipline in those days … it required weeks of dedicated debugging and testing to get one simple program working. Very few people did it. It made me feel like there was something I was good at.
That feeling is gone today … computer use is easy and everyone does it. It does not train you to give attdetion to detail like if used to. It is now a world of clicks and instant responses.
i still programme occasionally … that is really the only part I enjoy
Reading books (paper) is something I still practise … it takes time and effort like it always did, but you get more from a good non-fiction book than from an AI summary.
So dont give in to the 30 second sound bites. It is still possidle to have a proper learning experience and to practise giving attention.
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