B2 · متن · خبر و نظر
روی هر واژهای که نمیدانید بزنید.
You will have seen the claim that human attention has fallen below that of a goldfish. It is repeated constantly, usually by people selling something that promises to fix it. The figure has no source anyone can produce. What it does have is the shape of a thing we are already prepared to believe about ourselves, which is most of what a statistic needs to survive. That is not to say nothing has changed. The same person who cannot read two pages of a report will watch a four-hour match without once reaching for a phone. Attention has not shrunk so much as become harder to buy. Which is a less comfortable conclusion, because it moves the question from what is wrong with us to what is wrong with the thing we are being asked to attend to.
You will have seen the claim that human attention has fallen below that of a goldfish. It is repeated constantly, usually by people selling something that promises to fix it.
The figure has no source anyone can produce. What it does have is the shape of a thing we are already prepared to believe about ourselves, which is most of what a statistic needs to survive.
That is not to say nothing has changed. The same person who cannot read two pages of a report will watch a four-hour match without once reaching for a phone. Attention has not shrunk so much as become harder to buy.
Which is a less comfortable conclusion, because it moves the question from what is wrong with us to what is wrong with the thing we are being asked to attend to.