Introduction
I’ve had an idea brewing in my mind for a while - to reverse the attention-span-sapping model of Tiktok and Twitter, and turn what is now toxic and destructive discourse into positive and productive discourse. How can we increase our attention spans, critique in more long-form and productive ways, and collectively learn, whilst utilising our innate desire for socialisation?
Tiktok and Twitter are ruining our attention spans
Tiktok and Twitter are ruining our attention spans and sapping our ability to talk with precise language or nuance of ideas.
By what mechanism? You might be asking. These platforms are built from the ground up to:
- Be short-form
- Foster as much engagement as possible
Contrast these qualities to, for example, a blog/article/research paper/book. These types of mediums are built so that the reader stays engaged with the content, and they are long form which encourages full exploration of the idea at hand. This allows nuance in the writing, and encourages the writer to think of the best way to explain concepts to a general audience.
This is opposed to the short-form social media platforms, which boost posts which cause outrage in a reader, and endless back and forth angry messages between different readers. This ultimately leads to everyone in the comment section of said post being angry and not learning much at all. Not only that, but the attention span it took to read/watch said post is astronomically small compared to for example reading a book or a blog post, meaning that a typical user of these platforms will have an ever decreasing attention span.
Discord
Apps like Discord foster better discussions than short form content websites, as they are more akin to real life conversation, and the posts that cause outrage will quickly be forgotten. Why then, is Discord inadequate for learning?
Discord, like real conversations, suffers from the problem that content moves too fast, and so it fosters short-form content yet again. Short-form content platforms all suffer from the same problem, that ideas cannot be fully fleshed out before they are responded to. This can often mean that conversations about ideas are often rushed and ideas aren’t explored properly. While Discord doesn’t decrease the attention span of the user as much as Tiktok and Twitter (because attention is required to keep up with the rushed conversation model), it still suffers from this problem at least a little bit.
A platform to increase attention spans.
When it comes to building higher attention spans, we need to keep people engaged for as long as possible with a single piece of material. Increasing their attention span will mean that they have better reading comprehension and are better equipped to learn new things in the future. A book is probably the ideal form of training for increasing attention span, but it takes a long time to write a book, and is less conversational and therefore non-social.
I propose a blog-based communication method. This can be very fun and engaging, while increasing peoples attention spans and writing ability, but doesn’t require the mammoth commitment that either reading or writing a book requires. We can socialise by reading each others blog posts and replying by blog post. I hope this can foster better conversations.