[cowsup]

At the risk of sounding like an old man — heck, I guess I am — is this innovation ethical for humanity's future? A one-click "tl;dr" button for the web?

There are studies saying overall human attention span is shrinking. Anecdotally, I know people in their 20s who use TikTok daily, and they're no longer able to watch a movie without losing focus.

Squeezing all aspects of our digital life, including learning new skills or reading the news, into a bite-sized "summary," is not going to lead to a better-informed and more productive society.

[rchaud]

> Anecdotally, I know people in their 20s who use TikTok daily, and they're no longer able to watch a movie without losing focus.

I'm almost 40 and haven't been able to do this since the smartphone arrived; it's not Tiktok, it's just that the phone is right there, and movies are slow-paced (arty thrillers) or monotonous (lengthy CGI fight scenes).

[faeriechangling]

If we're going off anecdotes, we've also seen an explosion in popularity of the 2-3 hour podcast and season long Netflix binges.

Doesn't this generation have an absurdly long attention span compared to the generation of the 30 minute TV show with three 2-3 minute commercial breaks?

[asdff]

There's things that are different though. People listening podcasts are sometimes multitasking so that's divided focus right there. In terms of modern TV and movies, shots are actually shorter these days. To its worst extent you can end up with these sorts of scenes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=by4UZ-79MK4