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Abundance of Information Narrows our Collective Attention Span

posted by chromas on Tuesday April 16 2019, @01:35AM   Printer-friendly
from the Squirrel! dept.

martyb writes:

Abundance of Information Narrows our Collective Attention Span:

The negative effects of social media and a hectic news cycle on our attention span has been an ongoing discussion in recent years—but there's been a lack of empirical data supporting claims of a 'social acceleration.' A new study in Nature Communications finds that our collective attention span is indeed narrowing, and that this effect occurs not only on social media, but also across diverse domains including books, web searches, movie popularity, and more.

Our public discussion can appear to be increasingly fragmented and accelerated. Sociologists, psychologists, and teachers have warned of an emerging crisis stemming from a 'fear of missing out,' keeping up to date on social media, and breaking news 24/7. So far, the evidence to support these claims has only been hinted at or has been largely anecdotal. There has been an obvious lack of a strong empirical foundation.

In a new study, conducted by a team of European scientists from Technische Universität Berlin, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, University College Cork, and DTU, this empirical evidence has been presented regarding one dimension of social acceleration, namely the increasing rates of change within collective attention.

"It seems that the allocated attention in our collective minds has a certain size, but that the cultural items competing for that attention have become more densely packed. This would support the claim that it has, indeed, become more difficult to keep up to date on the news cycle, for example." says Professor Sune Lehmann from DTU Compute.

[...] "Our data only supports the claim that our collective attention span is narrowing. Therefore, as a next step, it would be interesting to look into how this affects individuals, since the observed developments may have negative implications for an individual's ability to evaluate the information they consume. Acceleration increases, for example, the pressure on journalists' ability to keep up with an ever-changing news landscape. We hope that more research in this direction will inform the way we design new communication systems, such that information quality does not suffer even when new topics appear at increasing rates."

More information: Philipp Lorenz-Spreen et al. Accelerating dynamics of collective attention, Nature Communications (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-09311-w

tl;dr?

Also at EurekAlert!

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @05:46AM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @05:46AM (#830294)

    Here are the pending stories for this site, every single one with the name of a multibillion dollar corporation in the title:

    Mainpage 04/16 12:31 Google Launches Cloud Code to Make Cloud-Native Development Easier MrPlow
    Mainpage 04/16 10:59 Microsoft: Hackers Compromised Support Agent’s Credentials to Access Customer Email Accounts upstart
    Mainpage 04/16 09:27 Declassified U2 Spy Plane Images Reveal Ancient Sites realDonaldTrump
    Mainpage 04/16 07:55 SpaceX Loses the Center Core of its Falcon Heavy Rocket due to Choppy Seas martyb
    Mainpage 04/16 06:23 Lyft Removes Faulty Electric Bicycles From Three Cities takyon

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @06:26AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @06:26AM (#830305)

    Mainpage 04/16 09:27 Declassified U2 Spy Plane Images Reveal Ancient Sites realDonaldTrump

    I guess the band U2 is a multibillion dollar corp...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @07:35AM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @07:35AM (#830323)

      Lockheed certainly is.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @08:17AM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @08:17AM (#830331)

        every single one with the name of a multibillion dollar corporation in the title

        Was Lockheed Martin in the title?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @08:25AM (4 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @08:25AM (#830334)

          No, only realDonaldTrump.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @10:51AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @10:51AM (#830356)

            Trump is a multib... Aha forget it the Kardashians are on.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 16 2019, @01:43PM (2 children)

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 16 2019, @01:43PM (#830385) Journal
            Not in the title. And there's some people who think the realDonaldTrump might not be a multibillion corporation. Heretical, I know.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @03:05PM (1 child)

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 16 2019, @03:05PM (#830426)

              The exception proves the rule.