[ExI] Attention Spans Decreasing?

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sat, Jan 25, 2014 at 8:51 AM, William Flynn Wallace
<foozler83 at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> OK Spike, Bill will comment:
>
> I recently was asked by a neighbor who knew of my academic background (Ph.
> D. exp. psych) and a hobby, gardening, and brought a bug over for me to
> identify.  When I went to get my bug book he said that he was devastated
> that I did not know right away.  After all I was so smart, right?
>

Having already read the rest of this post, and numerous others, I'd have to
agree that you're plenty smart. I also agree that if something doesn't
naturally stick, you do have to put effort into learning it enough to pull
it out at a moment's notice. As I interview for various computer jobs, I
notice that they want someone who has all the relevant skillset memorized,
which is different for every job. It's frustrating because there are so
many different skillsets in computer science. My skillset is to know how to
solve problems, I don't need to memorize every keyword in PHP to do that. I
can learn PHP in a few days enough to solve any problem I need to. But
people don't trust that. It's silly, but I digress.

Point:  why memorize something, spending all that time and energy when all
> you need is to know is where that information is and how to interpret it
> when you find it.  On a visit to a physician he got out a big book and
> looked up something in it.
> Rather than being insulted that he was some kind of incompetent, I was
> favorably impressed.  No one can put all of that in his head.
>

I will be even more impressed when a physician asks Watson something in
front of me. There is a certain kind of intellectual humility in doing
something like that.


> And if he did, could he get it out?  Superficial evidence of memory
> decline is often the result of conflicting memories, and the more you have
> in memory the more you have the possibility for conflict - meaning that you
> just cannot get it out at least temporarily.
>

There is also a shortage of people who TRAIN their memory these days. This
TED talk does a far better job than I could at explaining what that means.
http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html


In working my crossword puzzles I often think of a word that would do as it
> is similar to what I was searching my brain for, but it is wrong and
> somehow blocks my search for the right one (aka interference theory).
>

Yeah, that happens to me all the time. I used to be better at doing my own
Thesaurus activities, but with that function built into Word and better
available online so easily, maybe that function has degraded in my mind as
well.


> The idea that video games or anything else has dulled our brains is just
> silly.  The games cause our brains to work in certain ways and not others.
> Studies show that gamers do better than nongamers on some nongame mental
> tasks - not surprising.
>

Brains are obviously quite adaptive, malleable and reactive. If I take time
to learn one skill to a greater degree, then it is obvious that I'm not
spending time developing other skills. So if I spend 10,000 hours getting
good at playing video games, or watching TV, or searching for the VERY best
porn, then clearly I can not have spent that 10,000 hours becoming highly
skilled in some other area. It isn't what it does to our brain, it's what
it does to our knowledge base and skill set.


> Nor have we devolved.  Anyone who has taken Psych 101 knows a bit a how
> memory works.  How about attention?  Listening is a learned skill and not
> at all easy to learn.  Then you have to get it into memory and that is also
> a learned skill, not automatic in any way except in some people who cannot
> help but memorize every license plate ahead of them.  I did not forget some
> things in the novel I read last week, as I did not put them into memory in
> the first place.  Generally speaking one has to try and sometimes try hard
> to get something into memory and if it ain't there you can't find it!
>

I find that I remember certain kinds of things without much effort. The
sorts of things I learn reading this list, for example, stick very well
with me. Other things, like people's names, I find very difficult, even
when I apply the memory palace games that are supposed to make it easier.
It just takes a lot of time and repetition to remember names for me.


> Nowadays we talk about teaching how to think critically and creatively but
> I haven't seen much evidence that it is done right.
>

Does anyone know if common core is trying to address this? Or just make
math confusing. I want to hear good things about common core if they are
there too.


> Just like religion:  you can't just teach honor and virtue etc., you have
> to tell people what not to do as well.
>

Not sure I get your point here, but it sounds interesting. Please elaborate?


> Does anyone know of classes at any level that teach all the cognitive
> errors I mention so often (search Wikipedia for 'cognitive errors')?
>

http://www.randi.org and other skeptics organizations try hard to teach
these. Not sure that's a class though.


> Do economics or finance classes teach how to avoid scams?  Why not?
>

Seems that avoiding scams ought to be part of any course on how to handle
money. Great thought.


> The most effective people at drug addicts' facilities are former addicts,
> who know all the wrong kind of thinking.
>

No doubt.


> There is more bullshit surrounding psychology than any other field I
> know.
>

I dunno, I think politics and religion both have it beat. :-)


> So, Spike, we have to be doubly alert and set our BS detector on high.
> The problem is keeping an open mind to new things that will pan out.
> Unfortunately most of them in my field won't (bet we are slowly getting
> better though we won't catch up with physics and chemistry for hundreds of
> years, I think.
>
> Duke Ellington:  "If it sounds good it is good."  May work for music.  It
> works all too well for the snake oil salesmen of the world.  Oh excuse me,
> snake oil vendors, I meant to say politicians.
>
>
Thanks for a really well thought out post! Much appreciated. My brain feels
stimulated!

-Kelly
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