Me and the Goldfish

A recent news item on NPR stated that technology is making idiots of us all. To be more precise, the story claimed that humans--because of all the technology we depend upon each day--now have an attention span of 8 seconds. To put this in perspective, goldfish top out at about 9 seconds.

I am not going to quarrel with the science here. I am sure that someone somewhere had a behavioral science grant from NIH that allowed them to measure goldfish attention spans, and I am sure there were proper controls in place and that no goldfish were harmed in the course of this study.

However, in our 140-character Twitter-verse, with our ever-dwindling grammar, spelling, and reading skills, I'd think that most posts would require more than 8 seconds to decipher. Writing those posts would perhaps consume less time, because total disregard of the above would certainly speed the typing of the message right along--particularly when one allows for the fact that the message need not require any thought (as witness the inanities posted on almost any public website.) Even averaging the writing/reading/typing times together, 8 seconds of focused attention seems to be a little low. Now if one were comparing, say, the relative intelligences of human vs. goldfish in this arena, I might be willing to give the advantage to the goldfish. At least he thinks an added second before responding.

In yet another area of human behavior/attention-requiring acts, one could consider TV watching. While you might have to add in a factor for the convexity of the bowl, one might be able to compare attention to television programs. I fear that here, I would be with the fish, turning away from the screen again and again--only I would lack the excuse that he has of confinement in a circular bowl. In fact, I often turn on the television, then turn away in disgust well before my 8-second attention span has elapsed. Perhaps I need a little china castle to explore in my family room, or a field of gently-waving water plants...or maybe a book. Perhaps a scientist might come up with a reading goldfish, and measure his/her attention span. I think I might be able to win that one.