Gen Y Attention Span
Is texting to blame?
(WORLD) ’1 message received’ is the most likely thing I’ll see in the morning when I switch my phone on (oh, aren’t I popular?). Text messaging has been one of the most successful methods of communication for younger people in the past decade or so (give or take a few years). With mobile phone tariffs offering ’1,000 free texts’ with new contracts, it’s no wonder that SMS is a huge part of generation Y.
So apparently texting is the newest thing that will cause our brains to implode—it seems that our attention spans have reduced, due to texting, and a school in Canada wants to ban mobile phones. Schools should realise that communication has become a number one priority, however, I do agree with the article, in the sense that people should learn to draw a line and know when to ‘switch off’. The sound of mobiles ringing in lessons and stopping the flow of teachers has disrupted countless lessons of mine, as they are interrupted and pause to tell off the student for having their phone switched on. In some ways it does stop education, but only for a few seconds. It has/is never really been a big deal because people know well enough when to concentrate or when they can spare a few moments to send a message.
So what is it about the constant need for social interaction that is so appealing for us? The need to be loved? It sounds cliche, but I think it could be a large reason. Having someone spend a few minutes on constructing a text for your eyes only makes people feel a bit special, the same way in which a handwritten love letter would touch you. I am in no way comparing love letters to everyday texts, but the fact that someone is spending time to talk to you makes you feel loved.
Another article that about media consumption , (which was eerily similar to the stuff I wrote about back in September about multi-tasking—only my post has less statistics and more rambling) shows how the modern teenager can simultaneously complete tasks competently. This just goes to show how rapidly the ‘media landscape’ (as I’ve heard it being called many times) is changing. It’s alarming, but apparently now people don’t even realise they are consuming new types of media:
Only 61 percent of (respondents) recorded one or more episodes of concurrent media exposure, while 100 percent of participants in the observational study were found to engage in (it).
Here is what my friend had to say about texting in school:
Texting is just what young people know and are used to. It came around when we were growing up, so it’s sort of become a force of habit to go to school and text people that we’re not in lessons with. I think a large reason is because we (as students) get bored easily and texting is just such an easy way of communicating to those people that we’re not with.
Karen, 17
‘We get bored easily’ does tend to explain the article’s point about shortening attention spans, but at the same time, I don’t think boredom is the reason for the large use of texting, more so that it’s just a convenient and straight-forward way of talking to friends.
Contributed by Jess
