Distracted living?

The effects of a society overloaded with information, apps and various forms of electronic communication are manifest in more than just bumps and bruises. Our minds also are reeling from the flood of rapid-fire data and media consumption. People are finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on tasks requiring intellectual focus and attention to detail. Attention spans are fast decreasing as electronic devices push individuals to jump quickly and automatically from stimulus to stimulus and from topic to topic. Even goldfish are now said to have a longer attention span than humans.

Well, I've found it best to limit the amount of time spent on line to allow actual thinking. Anyone else have comments

Not sure if online or any one thing is responsible. But this article on my local papers website is an interesting take on it all.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/feed/lifes ... ce/fCJNFb/

Hope it encourages thought,
T2M

PS I wasn't sure wherre to put this. Could easily gone in one of the one liner topics.<shrug>

DDHvi wrote:

The effects of a society overloaded with information, apps and various forms of electronic communication are manifest in more than just bumps and bruises. Our minds also are reeling from the flood of rapid-fire data and media consumption. People are finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on tasks requiring intellectual focus and attention to detail. Attention spans are fast decreasing as electronic devices push individuals to jump quickly and automatically from stimulus to stimulus and from topic to topic. Even goldfish are now said to have a longer attention span than humans.

Well, I've found it best to limit the amount of time spent on line to allow actual thinking. Anyone else have comments

The only electronic device I carry with me (but only use it about 3% of the time) are my hearing aides. I do not own a cell phone of any kind. I do not need one. I look at a map (or map quest)before I leave the house. As for being distracted... I limited myself to about two hours a day to surf the net and that is it.

It is really sad when I go out to dinner and see two people sharing a table and both have their phones out and neither are talking to each other.... Call me a luddite but tech is societies personal communication downfall...

DDHvi wrote:

The effects of a society overloaded with information, apps and various forms of electronic communication are manifest in more than just bumps and bruises. Our minds also are reeling from the flood of rapid-fire data and media consumption. People are finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on tasks requiring intellectual focus and attention to detail. Attention spans are fast decreasing as electronic devices push individuals to jump quickly and automatically from stimulus to stimulus and from topic to topic. Even goldfish are now said to have a longer attention span than humans.

Well, I've found it best to limit the amount of time spent on line to allow actual thinking. Anyone else have comments

I consume a lot of information every day and I have no problems with it. The key is to choose what to consume and how you consume it.

Senior Chief wrote:The only electronic device I carry with me (but only use it about 3% of the time) are my hearing aides. I do not own a cell phone of any kind. I do not need one. I look at a map (or map quest)before I leave the house. As for being distracted... I limited myself to about two hours a day to surf the net and that is it.

It is really sad when I go out to dinner and see two people sharing a table and both have their phones out and neither are talking to each other.... Call me a luddite but tech is societies personal communication downfall...

The problem has never been the tech, the problem lies in what is socially accepted. Blaming tech is like blaming water for being wet.

My niece, 14-yrs-old now, did a report on the effects of the information age. It was a wonderful read. She got an A+ on it.

She tied in Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" with George Orwell's "1984" in a quite lovely and interesting way. Then she threw in a little speculation of the notion of Star Trek's Prime Directive failing on Earth when aliens crashed at Roswell and prematurely loosed technology onto unsuspecting and ill-prepared humans.

The result is exposure to a lifestyle we are ill-prepared and too innocent to understand, which represents a danger to us that we are not capable of seeing. The results are people spending the majority of their lives connected -- online -- immersed into a cyber world while being completely disconnected to reality -- of their surroundings. Death has been the result in far too many cases. Death to one's selves and/or to innocents, by-standing around us. How many of us have almost become a casualty because of some nitwit operating a two ton missile while texting or talking on the phone?

It's not getting better. It is escalating. The worry was once of driving while talking on the phone. That has been superseded to driving while texting. Tech is a benign lump in our lives that becomes malignant if exposed to too much sunlight -- the sunlight of our lives.

There's an app for everything. Except that the most important app is the least popular app of all. It is the [Power-Off] button.

This small excerpt is out of the mind of a 14-yr-old.

Senior Chief wrote:The only electronic device I carry with me (but only use it about 3% of the time) are my hearing aides. I do not own a cell phone of any kind. I do not need one. I look at a map (or map quest)before I leave the house. As for being distracted... I limited myself to about two hours a day to surf the net and that is it.

It is really sad when I go out to dinner and see two people sharing a table and both have their phones out and neither are talking to each other.... Call me a luddite but tech is societies personal communication downfall...

The problem has never been the tech, the problem lies in what is socially accepted. Blaming tech is like blaming water for being wet.[/quote]

I do not blame tech for communication downfall, it should be placed squarely on bad parenting. I think that bad parenting, lack of discipline, lack of taking responsibility for ones actions or in-actions are part of the problems that are seen in todays news. Schools should be teaching what is right and wrong and not 50 shades of legal greyness and politcal correctness. Quit giving out awards just because a child shows up or attends a sporting event.... Sorry... for my minor rant.

Senior Chief wrote:

Senior Chief wrote:The only electronic device I carry with me (but only use it about 3% of the time) are my hearing aides. I do not own a cell phone of any kind. I do not need one. I look at a map (or map quest)before I leave the house. As for being distracted... I limited myself to about two hours a day to surf the net and that is it.

It is really sad when I go out to dinner and see two people sharing a table and both have their phones out and neither are talking to each other.... Call me a luddite but tech is societies personal communication downfall...

Senior Chief wrote:The problem has never been the tech, the problem lies in what is socially accepted. Blaming tech is like blaming water for being wet.

I do not blame tech for communication downfall, it should be placed squarely on bad parenting. I think that bad parenting, lack of discipline, lack of taking responsibility for ones actions or in-actions are part of the problems that are seen in todays news. Schools should be teaching what is right and wrong and not 50 shades of legal greyness and politcal correctness. Quit giving out awards just because a child shows up or attends a sporting event.... Sorry... for my minor rant.

Rant all you like Senior Chief. It's good for the soul.

Ranting leads to chanting leads to panting leads to pause leads to cause leads to change.

What about when the communication problem caused by tech is manifested between adults. There was a study I read of how social media is invading marriages and tallying divorce. Smartphones are helping to foster socially inept kids. I agree that parents have to step in and regulate it as my parents regulated the *boob tube in my day. There were absolutely NO "boob tubes" allowed in anyone's bedroom. My siblings had to go to bat for me in a family meeting to allow my computer to pass thru parent customs! lol I almost saw the BSOD on that one! During dinner, everyone in my parent's house ate together at the dinner table with NO radio or televisions on anywhere!

*Appropriate US slang by 1965, shared by my parents of an accurate description for a "television set," from: boob "stupid person." The common sentiment was that if you are one of those kids "raised" by a television and denying yourself a rounded education -- books, theater, art, etc., you'd turn yourself into a big boob -- stupid person.

Our smartphones are the new boob tubes making dumb kids. People walk in front of cars with a smartphone in their hand. They fall into open manholes with a smartphone in their hands, etc. etc. I was at a stoplight waiting to cross the street once and had to grab a girl about to walk headlong into a car with her head into her phone! I was crossing a street with a woman on her phone. She went to make a right on red without looking. I was the pedestrian she pretty much hit. I had to put my hand out to brace the impact. She turned beet red and the female passenger beside her was all apologetic. She was too stunned to apologize -- she had almost severely injured or killed someone. Me.

But then, I never agreed with "right-on-red."

cthia wrote:
snip

The results are people spending the majority of their lives connected -- online -- immersed into a cyber world while being completely disconnected to reality -- of their surroundings. Death has been the result in far too many cases. Death to one's selves and/or to innocents, by-standing around us. How many of us have almost become a casualty because of some nitwit operating a two ton missile while texting or talking on the phone?

snip

Except that the most important app is the least popular app of all. It is the [Power-Off] button.

This small excerpt is out of the mind of a 14-yr-old.

I also am proud of her.

If you all don't already know them, you might introduce her to the "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" series of books by Kiyosaki and Lechtner. They aren't perfect, but showed me the importance of cash flow analysis.

What ties this in is my modification of the "Expenses" portion of financial statements. I now use the sub categories of: Tools; survival; comforts and conveniences; and luxuries. This helps to make a better analysis of my costs.

Looking at history, we find many luxuries socially morphing into comforts and conveniences, then being considered as necessities. However, history also records a number of social breakdowns producing major population drops. Does anyone have good knowledge of the European population before and after the collapse of the Roman Empire? It would be interesting to compare that of cities vs. rural areas.

Given today's weapons, my nickname for any large city is "Ground Zero." This isn't the only possible collapse scenario.

The problem comes not from the technology itself, but dependence on it to the extent that the luxury and comfort/convenience parts are overriding the survival part, not just in expenses, but also in attention and efforts. Death can occur by long term effects as well as short term ones. Have you ever tried to have a logical discussion with someone who is used to getting fast, easy, but not always correct, answers to almost everything? Sound Bite University, anyone

Which is one reason I garden, and encourage others to do so also. "One little candle" may not do much, but it doesn't cost much either. In fact, this one has a negative cost, if you file the labor part under "good outdoor exercise."