While the "overwhelming evidence" for human caused climate change remains underwhelming, in ether case, I'll do what helps the most people to limit greenhouse gases: stop consuming beef (since "we the people" have little to no power over the major causes of climate change: U.S.A.'s and China's governments).

Still, while it's worth doing what we can to diminish greenhouse gases, it's probably wise to get a better understanding of the meteorological conditions affecting the planet from sources other than televised comedy shows.

(Surely, someone somewhere has an explanation, say, for this, but I doubt televised comedy shows have the time, expertise, or attention spans to adequately address a complex issue).

I can only speak from my own experience, but I have witnessed most of the situations the poem addresses. It's not the case that nobody interacts anymore, but most people I know always seem to be keeping an eye (or two) on their smart phones or computer screens, fearing they might miss something 'important' on the Internet (like a new meme or a comment by some stranger who disagrees with their views who they might have to argue with, which suddenly becomes more important than the person they are actually talking to). It's hard to make new friends if people are only interested in their social media profiles and making new 'friends' there, but never actually contact each other or spend any time together.
I know people who cannot talk to one another without simultaneously reading articles or looking at funny pictures and videos on the Internet (and thus don't really listen to what the other person has to say); who are unable to do one thing at a time, because it is too boring to talk to someone or do anything at all without further entertainment. They lack the attention span to talk to each other for more than three minutes at a time, or watch a single TV show episode or movie without pausing it in order to watch some videos or post comments online. A friend of mine believes it's too boring to talk to each other without at least playing a video game at the same time. I know people who almost exclusively interact with their real life friends or relatives through social media (who mostly live in the same city).
I like the way the Internet connects people far away from each other, who might not even have met otherwise. I have met several people this way, who I wouldn't want to miss. The problem, which I believe is the main point of this video, is the way it seems to disconnect the people sitting next to each other, which I have experienced myself several times. The problems pointed out in this video might not apply to everyone and every region, but it seems to apply to the people around me.

Bloody hell, my attention span today is like three seconds, tops. Can't get anything done properly in the first attempt...

Here's the url: https://github.com/theonion/editor/blob/master/examples/embeds.html

You must have the shortest attention span ever. You played like 10 minutes of a game before giving up on it. That's like watching 2 minutes of a movie and then walking out of the theater.

Because the meaningful video is 19 times as long. It's as simple as that, even here, attention spans are limited.

I have come to the same conclusion about longer terms and term limits, however I came to a more radical conclusion -- one term limit.

Double everything in the Constitution -- 2 becomes 4, 4 becomes 8 -- and one term only. (There is always recall if they are egregiously awful)

That means -- zero attention to fund raising. Zero attention to popularity polls. You can vote your conscience instead of party lines, when you have more information than the short attention span public.

One thing will happen, I predict.... the general public will be all -- being in power corrupted them. I hear it now in our small town, when someone gets elected to the Food Coop Board of Directors. They are all radical until they are elected, learn their responsibilities to ALL members, and tone down the rhetoric. And are then called corrupted by power.

Better that than REALLY corrupted by forces having nothing to do with doing a good job -- like public polls and getting re-elected.

I'm not a Maher fan, but he does have a few points.
Yes, the Benghazi fiasco is an issue, as is the IRS thing, but these two "scandals" are far from being anything close to the "worst" scandal that's ever happened.
Thing is, that the American public in general (and congress even more so) has a very short attention span, they easily forget and dismiss history and only focus on the present. So when something pops up, they instantly think it's the "worst thing" (or "best" thing, depending on the situation) ever.

Personally, I don't like where this is going. It's bad enough Google and similar companies are making millions off tracking your surfing habits; just wait till these become popular. How long did he/she look at that cereal box or car or whatever? And at what part of it? Better get that info off to marketing to increase the font size and change the color. Meanwhile, let's bombard the user with up-to-date advertisements in real time.

Not to mention invasion of privacy (outward facing camera), increasing our already short attention spans and isolation from one another, draconian EULA's -- don't resell 'em, don't lend 'em out, otherwise our data gathering will be shit. What's next? Don't take them off?

Yes, I can see the thousands of beneficial uses these could provide too. Don't mean to go all Kaczynski/Orwell here but it seems an awful lot of trade just to be able to watch cat videos instantly.

How short are people's attention spans these days that an 18 second video requires a 'Wait for it' tag?

Perfect explanation for the low attention span-ed

"Here's a pitot tube"

(Fast car footage)

"Heres the inside"

(Fast car footage)

"Hope this explanation helped.

They should show this in school. Not to mention it's only 10 mins long, covers all the bases, and we all know kids these days don't have attention spans because God isn't in school, and such.

Is our attention span now so low that they can only show us 18 loops out of the 568 before they think we'll get bored? I wanted to see what it looked like for him to do this, to try to get some sort of feeling for what he'd achieved rather than be rushed through it. Even just a ten second stable shot of him looping would have made this video far more impressive.

>> ^MonkeySpank:

I wholeheartedly agree with Lewis that you cannot talk about the economy in 2 mins when color commentary on a football foul can last 10 minutes. Just how much attention span do the American people have? How much can we trust them with?


In England under medieval Catholic rule you would be tortured to death for merely OWNING a copy of the Bible in English rather than Latin. They still use Latin in law and other 'Elite' interests. Having the general public follow what's going on has NEVER been on the menu.

US Corporate 'news' is just the latest iteration for keeping people running around in circles while the money flows in to the same type of families (in the Uk actually the SAME FAMILIES!).

But, you know, there's always 'Trickle Down'... or sorry, now its 'Wealth Creators'.. or, wait, lets check FOX for the latest spin..

I wholeheartedly agree with Lewis that you cannot talk about the economy in 2 mins when color commentary on a football foul can last 10 minutes. Just how much attention span do the American people have? How much can we trust them with?

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