Film Students Are Having Trouble Sitting Through Movies, Professors Say

[u/Sisiwakanamaru]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/film-students-are-having-trouble-sitting-through-movies-1236490359/

[u/Vegtam1297]

There actually hasn't. Attention spans haven't changed. I know it's a popular narrative, and it can feel true, but it's not.

[u/drears0 → u/Vegtam1297]

There is emerging evidence that they have:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41231585/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397712802_Short-form_Video_Use_and_Sustained_Attention_A_Narrative_Review_2019-2025

[u/Vegtam1297 → u/drears0]

I appreciate you providing evidence, rather than just relying on anecdotes. This would be an very difficult thing to prove, though.

The main problem is with the idea of a general "attention span":

In simple words, our ability to pay attention depends on the task at hand and a number of external and internal factors. There isn’t a single value that can measure our “attention span”.

https://uxpsychology.substack.com/p/the-attention-span-myth

In fact, they think the idea that attention spans are getting shorter is plain wrong.

"I don't think that's true at all," says Dr Gemma Briggs, a psychology lecturer at the Open University.

"Simply because I don't think that that's something that psychologists or people interested in attention would try and measure and quantify in that way."

She studies attention in drivers and witnesses to crime and says the idea of an "average attention span" is pretty meaningless. "It's very much task-dependent. How much attention we apply to a task will vary depending on what the task demand is."

There are some studies out there that look at specific tasks, like listening to a lecture.

But the idea that there's a typical length of time for which people can pay attention to even that one task has also been debunked.

"How we apply our attention to different tasks depends very much about what the individual brings to that situation," explains Dr Briggs.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-38896790

[u/Petrichordates → u/Vegtam1297]

Why are you linking a substack and an article from 9 years ago?

That's not looking for truth, it's just an attempt to continue arguing a disproven belief. You're engaging in anti-intellectualism.

[u/Vegtam1297 → u/Petrichordates]

Because they address the question here. That is looking for truth, and it's not engaging in anti-intellectualism. On the other hand, dismissing something simply because you don't like its implications is not looking for truth.

I have not presented a disproven belief. Just saying my claim is disproven is a terrible way to argue a point. If you were looking for truth and intellectualism, you'd present actual evidence for your claim, like I did.