Author Topic: Young people's "shrinking attention span"  (Read 607 times)

Hopscotch

Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« on: December 27, 2024, 02:02:32 AM »
Young people?s shrinking attention spans are nothing to worry about. Here?s why
Distractions long predated today?s fast-moving online world. Young people may well be discovering new ways of paying attention
Guardian 23 Dec 2024

"...Is it not possible that the 19th-century novel, much loved by many boomers and members of gen X, is becoming for some in the younger generations as much of a slog as the 18th-century novel was for many literature students of the 1990s? Might what we have identified as an attention crisis be in part a shift in priorities?..."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/26/young-people-attention-spans-online-world
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Jeff Tanyard

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2024, 10:50:55 AM »
Young people?s shrinking attention spans are nothing to worry about. Here?s why
Distractions long predated today?s fast-moving online world. Young people may well be discovering new ways of paying attention
Guardian 23 Dec 2024

"...Is it not possible that the 19th-century novel, much loved by many boomers and members of gen X, is becoming for some in the younger generations as much of a slog as the 18th-century novel was for many literature students of the 1990s? Might what we have identified as an attention crisis be in part a shift in priorities?..."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/26/young-people-attention-spans-online-world


 :icon_rolleyes:

Yes, shrinking attention spans are a problem.  Reading uses more of the brain--and creates new neural connections--than passively watching a screen.  This is not a difference we can just shrug off if we actually want to keep civilization afloat.

And tweeting and text-messaging don't count as "reading" as far as this particular issue is concerned.  That's the intellectual equivalent of the Dick and Jane stories, stuff we give to toddlers to introduce them to reading.  Civilization cannot be maintained by intellectual children in adult bodies.

https://nicolamorgan.com/blog/2021/09/22/films-or-books-whats-the-brain-difference/

There are numerous scientific articles about how reading trains the brain to think in a way that other pursuits do not.  This stuff has been known for decades.

And on a personal note, I found Voltaire's Candide and Captain Bligh's account of the mutiny on HMS Bounty to be far easier reads than Hugo's Les Miserables, even though the former two are from the 18th century and the latter is from the 19th century.  "Older" doesn't necessitate "more difficult to read."  Difficulty varies by author, not by century or even millennium.  Plenty of ancient Roman and Greek stuff is easily readable for today's readers.

On a related note, I highly recommend Bligh's book.  It's a captivating sea adventure story and a necessary foil to the anti-Bligh Hollywood movies.
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Hopscotch

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #2 on: December 28, 2024, 04:47:30 AM »
Agree - Candide, yep.  Bligh's book, yep.  20th century Am lit's greatest single-joke novel The Sound & the Fury, yep again.  Not convinced short attention span is problem but failure education system to open students' capacity to think and to choose quality in whatever lit form appeals.  But that at least in US is a political problem and not for discussion here.
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Bill Hiatt

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Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #3 on: December 28, 2024, 07:11:54 AM »
It's not entirely a political problem, although most issues have a political dimension. Generally, the rhetoric across the political spectrum reinforces the importance of education, though there may be differences about what constitutes a quality education. Just today, I was astounded to read comments from someone I almost always disagree with about the need to improve education. At least in general terms, I agreed with everything this particular politician said.

The less political part is the competitors for our attention. Screens do pull people away from books, and the internet encourages rapid movement and either short reading or superficial reading of longer pieces. Of course, now someone can just read the AI summary and not bother with the original article. Sigh!



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Writer

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #4 on: December 31, 2024, 10:18:56 AM »
The young people I know still very much enjoy stories, they're just consuming them differently, by audio and podcast series. I would assume listening to fiction and non-fiction activates the mind similarly to reading a book. Since people have had TV and comic books for a long time, I don't view alternate methods of story-telling as a threat to writers, even if it forces us to evolve our methods or change mediums. Since ancient times, people have found ways to tell tales.

I also know a lot of young people who still enjoy print books. They want hard covers with beautiful artwork they can display on their shelves and share with friends. Ideally, with a large fandom on Youtube, where they can watch other readers speculating about the characters and storylines, and can feel like part of a community centered around their favorite author or series.
 
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LilyBLily

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #5 on: December 31, 2024, 02:12:09 PM »
That's fascinating, since I read now and I have always read to be alone in a different world from my reality.

I can't believe my kind of reader has somehow vanished. Escapist literature is called that for a reason.   
 

Hopscotch

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #6 on: January 01, 2025, 03:20:46 AM »
That's fascinating, since I read now and I have always read to be alone in a different world from my reality.

Could I be wrong or don't most writers write to escape into a different world, readers following after?
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Post-Crisis D

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2025, 04:45:20 AM »
And on a personal note, I found Voltaire's Candide and Captain Bligh's account of the mutiny on HMS Bounty to be far easier reads than Hugo's Les Miserables, even though the former two are from the 18th century and the latter is from the 19th century.  "Older" doesn't necessitate "more difficult to read."  Difficulty varies by author, not by century or even millennium.  Plenty of ancient Roman and Greek stuff is easily readable for today's readers.

How much of that is due to the translation?  With the exception of Captain Bligh's work, the examples you've given were originally written in a language other than English.  For example, Candide was written in French.  English translations were made in 1759, 1762 and 1947.  And I'm guessing today's readers aren't reading Roman and Greek works in their original Latin or Greek.
Mulder: "If you're distracted by fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above."
The X-Files: "Blood"
 

Jeff Tanyard

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2025, 05:04:00 AM »
And on a personal note, I found Voltaire's Candide and Captain Bligh's account of the mutiny on HMS Bounty to be far easier reads than Hugo's Les Miserables, even though the former two are from the 18th century and the latter is from the 19th century.  "Older" doesn't necessitate "more difficult to read."  Difficulty varies by author, not by century or even millennium.  Plenty of ancient Roman and Greek stuff is easily readable for today's readers.

How much of that is due to the translation?  With the exception of Captain Bligh's work, the examples you've given were originally written in a language other than English.  For example, Candide was written in French.  English translations were made in 1759, 1762 and 1947.  And I'm guessing today's readers aren't reading Roman and Greek works in their original Latin or Greek.


Good question.  I don't know the answer.  My presumption, though, is that a short and simple sentence in English would also be short and simple in the original French, and a long and convoluted sentence would also originally be long and convoluted.  Same thing with long-winded paragraphs and chapters in general.  I suspect Les Miserables would be an absolute chore in any language, and I highly prefer the musical and the 2012 movie (both of which I love, by the way).

Welcome back.  Haven't seen you post in a while.   :cheers
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Post-Crisis D

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #9 on: January 21, 2025, 06:16:09 AM »
Good question.  I don't know the answer.  My presumption, though, is that a short and simple sentence in English would also be short and simple in the original French, and a long and convoluted sentence would also originally be long and convoluted.  Same thing with long-winded paragraphs and chapters in general.  I suspect Les Miserables would be an absolute chore in any language, and I highly prefer the musical and the 2012 movie (both of which I love, by the way).

A long time ago, someone--and it may have been you--posted a video showing a group of performers that did Shakespeare using the original pronunciations which made a difference in both the rhythm and understanding of the words.  For example, some words that do not rhyme in modern English did rhyme back then so there were hidden or double meanings that we don't catch with the modern pronunciation.

Similarly, I think how something is translated can have a similar effect.  Often, too, there aren't exact translations for some words or phrases, so you'll have some artistic license based on how the translator decided to translate something.  That may result in something that is perhaps easier (or harder) to read in English than in the original language.  And something translated into English 50 years ago might be done differently than the same work translated into English 200 years ago.

And, long convoluted sentences aren't always a chore.  Some can be fun to read while others are head-scratchers.


Welcome back.  Haven't seen you post in a while.   :cheers

:cheers
Mulder: "If you're distracted by fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above."
The X-Files: "Blood"
 

Jeff Tanyard

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2025, 12:10:41 PM »
Often, too, there aren't exact translations for some words or phrases, so you'll have some artistic license based on how the translator decided to translate something. 


Oh, I'm well aware of all that.  There comes a point, though, where the differences are stark enough that you can't just shrug them all away as translation quirks, and that's what I'm talking about here.

As to your point, though, I saw an interesting example just a few days ago.  It's from the LOTR movies.  Check it out, and pay attention to the German version:





At 3:45, Theoden says "ein Bluttag," which literally translates to "a blood day" or "a bloody day" even though the English version is, "a red day."  Now, one can make the case that the day is red because of the blood that's about to be spilled, so the two words would then be interchangeable in this context, but I think it's more than that.  Remember that Tolkien was a master philologist, and if he wanted to limit that phrase to literal blood, he could have easily done it.  He would have just called it a blood day.  No, I think the use of red here is meant to be more all-encompassing: it includes the blood that's about to be spilled, sure, but it also includes rage, the "seeing red" of a man who has completely lost control and given into his anger and bloodlust.  It's as much about passion, particularly the passion of mortal combat and the berserker spirit, as it is about literal blood.  Perhaps even more so.  Like so much of the rest of the book, it's as much spiritual as it is material.

Yeah, I think the German translator dropped the ball here.   :icon_rolleyes:

On the subject of Tolkien, never forget that the guy not only invented several languages for his story, but the languages all work according to the rules of language, and he then proceeded to write poems in those languages, and the poems have rhyme and meter as poems should.  It's folly to underestimate him.
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Bill Hiatt

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Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #11 on: January 22, 2025, 12:07:14 AM »
Tolkien is in many respects one of a kind. Star Trek fans did create a Klingon language, but that was a community project, not the work of one person.

Remember that Shakespeare was written for a listening audience, not a reading audience. Critics have pointed out that some of the words he used can have multiple meanings, sometimes signaled by particular spelling. (In an age before spelling was standardized, there were apparently a lot more homonyms.) Anyway, Shakespeare might have wanted one word to have more than one meaning, which his more sophisticated listeners would have appreciated. Consigning the text to writing forces a choice among those meanings. Shakespeare himself did publish a few of his plays, but it is clear that there were variations in the written text even during his own lifetime, which is partially do to the difficulty of spoken words with multiple meanings. Recently, critics have swung in the direction of regarding the First Folio Hamlet and the Quarto Hamlet as two separate versions rather than trying to homogenize them into one single work, as had been the case for centuries. But of course, the original text was fluid. We know from contemporary references that actors made changes, sometimes on the spur of the moment, and that the company sometimes used a different version for a royal performance than had been used at the Globe.

In other words, the transfer from listening audience to reading audience may itself be an act of translation--and not always an easy one.     


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Post-Crisis D

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2025, 04:34:14 AM »
Star Trek fans did create a Klingon language, but that was a community project, not the work of one person.

James Doohan and Jon Povill came up with the first bits of dialogue for Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  Then, for Star TreK III: The Search for Spock, Marc Okrand was hired to create the language.  He used the words created by James Doohan and added more and developed the grammar rules.  He published The Klingon Dictionary in 1985 and later released additional books on the language.

While others have suggested words, Marc Okrand is considered the authority and most only regard his submissions as official Klingon.

Qapla'!
Mulder: "If you're distracted by fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above."
The X-Files: "Blood"
 

Bill Hiatt

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Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #13 on: January 23, 2025, 05:49:49 AM »
Thanks for the clarification. I thought it was much more of a group project, though now, I'm not entirely sure why I thought that.


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Post-Crisis D

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #14 on: January 23, 2025, 06:44:30 AM »
Thanks for the clarification. I thought it was much more of a group project, though now, I'm not entirely sure why I thought that.

You might have been thinking of the Klingon Language Institute which maintains a website and serves to promote the use of the language.
Mulder: "If you're distracted by fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above."
The X-Files: "Blood"
 

Post-Crisis D

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #15 on: January 23, 2025, 06:55:55 AM »
As far as inventing languages goes, I didn't think it was that unusual for writers.  I created two or three in high school or maybe earlier for stories I was writing.  One was more complex than the others as that was the main language and the other(s) were used for brief encounters so I didn't get as deep in their development.  Anyway, I dug them out a few years ago.  The main language also had its own character set.  I partially finished the font for it last year; I just have to figure out how to do the characters and ligatures that don't exist in human languages so there's no reserved spaces for them in the font.
Mulder: "If you're distracted by fear of those around you, it keeps you from seeing the actions of those above."
The X-Files: "Blood"
 

LilyBLily

Re: Young people's "shrinking attention span"
« Reply #16 on: January 23, 2025, 07:58:58 AM »
That Shakespeare video was interesting because people were pronouncing English more like what we hear today in Irish-accented English.

And let's not forget that we tend to ignore philological cues. We say "Jane Air" when we mean Jane Eyre, yet certainly that should be pronounced  "Eire" because the "y" is or should be an "i" sound. Although not always, as with "Marilyn." So which is it, really?> Is iot Charlotte Bronte's sly joke? The Irish being considered at the time uncouth outsiders?

And "Anne Bowlin" for "Anne Boleyn" when contemporary spellings of her name often were "Bullein." There the "y" is clearly an "i" sound but also affected by the "e." Not "lin" at all.

And do not get me started on Americans who say "steen" when it should be said as "stine." German is very clear that "ei" is an "i" sound and "ie" is an "e" sound. Leonard Bernstein is stine, not steen. Yet plenty of us mispronounce our own names after one generation on this side of the Atlantic or Pacific.