Author of Be Ready for Anything and Bloom Where You’re Planted online course
Have you had the feeling that time is going faster lately than it used to? If so, you’re not alone and you’re not imagining things.
Recent research says that the use of digital technology causes our brains to process information faster and it’s also the cause of our plummeting attention spans. In 2000, the average human attention span was 12 seconds, but by 2013, it had dropped to 8 seconds. For a little perspective, a goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds. Yep. Humans now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish.
Our digital lifestyles are actually changing the ways our brains work, inciting us to multitask and to move on quickly from anything we don’t find immediately interesting. And just wait (don’t worry, it won’t seem like long) because as 5G rolls out, technology will move even faster – up to 100 times faster than the internet works right now.
How does digital technology affect us?
The most alarming thing about this research is that our constant diet of digital data means that our ability to think critically about this information is rapidly decreasing. I think just about all of us can attest to the fact that critical thinking is fast becoming a lost art. When we’re spoon-fed nothing but media bias and alternative information becomes harder and harder to find, it’s pretty clear that social bias will follow suit – something we’re seeing right now.
So how does digital technology make it seem like time is passing us by faster than ever before? Watch this video.
I can totally relate to the multitasking – it’s very rare for me to be able to sit down and watch a movie unless I’m doing something else at the same time – surfing the internet, crocheting, repairing something, flipping through a magazine. To be fair, I’ve always been like this, even pre-internet.
But it makes me wonder – is digital technology causing us to lose the ability to just sit down and enjoy one thing at a time?
What do you think?
Does it feel like time is passing by faster than it used to? Do you believe technology is to blame? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
If I use very small amounts of CBD/ with small amounts ofTHC I notice that things slow way down. Like for example when u fill the water pitcher from the fridge, it seems to take so long to fill like I’m standing there for 5 minutes…. The clock is super slow. I’m cleaning and doing dishes and I look and it’s only been 20 minutes and feels like hours. It was such a nice feeling… like I wasn’t rushed or stressed. And I was completely aware, there’s something to slowing our brains down!!
To me there seems to be several reasons for this.
First, you are so focused on what you are doing that you don’t notice the passage of time. This happens to lots of programmers. When I was working, I would look up and notice 3 or 4 hours had passed. My daughter tells me the same thing happens to her when she is sewing on her sewing machine.
Second, the months and years just seem to past faster the older you get. Just focusing on work of any type probably causes some effect like the first reason above.
Third, uh, I forgot the third one, I was concentrating so hard on the first two. lol
Indeed. I have come to the same conclusion.
Any article you write in the net must be prepared for the “three second reader”. The heading must be understood in less tha a second.
What are your sources?
What a relief to know it isn’t just my imagination, or I’m losing it, very disconcerting feeling to believe you are the only one experiencing this. definitely sensed time speeding up.
Matt 24:22
nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/japanquake/earth20110314.html
I’ve noticed it too, and not just when I’ve been on the smartphone. Just generally speaking, it seems like the time is going by much faster than even a couple of years ago. The angle of the sun seems a bit off, too, but that’s probably just me being unobservant.
I think it’s prospective. When you are 10, 3 months feels like forever because you’ve only lived 10 years. When you’re 60 , 3 months seems very short because it’s just a small percentage of how long you’ve lived
This presentation was agonizingly slow. Why not also publish the text so we don’t have to waste so much time listening to the presenter verbalize her way thru all of this. I retain much more of what I read versus what I hear.
As a teacher I see students who can’t stay awake in Class because they are up playing video games or on their phones. It is difficult to keep them focused and it gets worse each year.
The problem isn’t technology, rather programming and what people expect.
I think TV is worse than the internet, as the programming gets more and more frenetic. Even Sesame Street is too frenetic, so joined the banned shows when my boys were young. My boys are now adults, so while we had a TV in the house, we almost never watched it. So when my sons approached the internet, they looked for thought provoking articles, research information and mostly print pages. And they read books.
Technology can be a real help, and can help with research and critical thinking. It’s just how one uses it. Personally, I find it easier to read on a backlit screen than on paper, so I end up preferring to read books on my computer. But I get impatient when the only source of some of the information I’m researching is found on YouTube and a slow video. I can usually interact with the information better when it’s text. I also skip most articles on news sites because of information overload, but thought provoking articles get my attention.
For those weaned on the frenetic programming of TV, they now look for the same on the internet.