Random thoughts... - by Tocky
Kamlorn on 9/10/2023 at 21:02
Quote Posted by Nicker
The internet isn't responsible for the bad and good qualities it evokes in people.
Yeah, one more thing I forgot to mention. Clip thinking is a 'bad quality'. At least that's what we are implying about it usually.
Quote Posted by Nicker
greatly compresses the time between cause and effect.
Too abstract statement, at least for me. Can understand it intuitively, but not sure if that understanding is similar to the meaning, which you suggested here.
Quote Posted by Nicker
Clip thinking isn't a new thing, just a new word for an old thing.
Is it so trivial thing for you all? That random thought seemed to me like interesting discovery. And now you make me feel like a fool, to put it mildly.
Tocky on 10/10/2023 at 03:29
Didn't they use clip thinking in A Clockwork Orange? Seems to me it didn't work out so well....
Nicker on 10/10/2023 at 04:10
Quote:
And now you make me feel like a fool, to put it mildly.
Happens to me all the time on here. Usually when I start reading things into what other people write, which they neither said or intended. I never trivialized your thoughts. I agreed with you.
I just see things a little differently.
What I meant by time compression (and amplification) is that each new mass communication technology increases the ease with which an idea can be spread. The internet removes barriers of publication and distribution. All creatures try to get maximum result from minimum effort. But doing more while thinking less results in "bad quality", as you said.
Cheers.
Kamlorn on 10/10/2023 at 06:39
Quote Posted by Tocky
Didn't they use clip thinking in A Clockwork Orange? Seems to me it didn't work out so well....
I should rewatch this movie today. Can't remember such a thing there.
Kamlorn on 10/10/2023 at 07:06
Quote Posted by Nicker
Happens to me all the time on here. Usually when I start reading things into what other people write, which they neither said or intended. I never trivialized your thoughts. I agreed with you.
My initial thought can't be more trivial. I think the reason of our extended discussion is lackness of definitions. My God I hate definitions, but now I have a feeling we just exchanging our thoughts on different topics.
Quote Posted by Nicker
by time compression (and amplification) is that each new mass communication technology increases the ease with which an idea can be spread. The internet removes barriers of publication and distribution. All creatures try to get maximum result from minimum effort. But doing more while thinking less results in "bad quality", as you said.
Cheers.
What a wonderful theory, something in common visited my head. Can you give some links on that topic?
Nicker on 11/10/2023 at 04:18
Not sure which part of that paragraph you are referring to. There's a bit of "mass media" history, some biology, psychology and editorial comment.
If you search for histories of mass media you will probably find the basic theme I touched on. Starting with movable type printing press in the 1400's, each successive technology (sound recording, radio, film, television and the internet) creates a more dense and stimulating form of experiencing information, and spreads it faster and further. The flip side is that the material is explored with less depth and context. It takes on more emotional and sensational content, sacrificing understanding.
Clip thinking is the latest manifestation of the trend.
heywood on 12/10/2023 at 17:03
Kamlorn,
I think people have always had the same attention spans. And people have always preferred infotainment over straight information.
Before the printing press, most relied on minstrels and traveling storytellers to learn about the world. We made stories into songs because they are easier to memorize that way. We taught and remembered lessons through parables and allegories, often spoken in rhyming verses. These traditions continue today in nursery rhymes, poems, and popular songs. It's obvious that human memory was the limiting factor in what information could be shared and how accurately it could be shared back then. But I think it still is today.
Consider newspapers. I grew up reading a typical regional city paper where most articles were in the 300-500 range, with longer articles limited to about 800 words. According to (
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0749596X19300786) this paper, the average reading speed for non-fiction is 238 words per minute. So most articles were a 2-3 minute read. Online news isn't limited by paper, but successful news sites have stuck to similar article lengths. Blogs too. And general interest magazines as well.
Having a complete Encyclopedia Britannica was a bit of a status symbol when I was a kid, and that averages about 175 words or approximately one minute per topic, so not very deep at all.
When the phonograph came out, they designed the 78 format to hold 3-4 minutes of audio, because that was enough to record a popular song or short narration. Despite the many increases in recording capacity over time, most popular songs are still 3-4 minutes in length. A century ago, most people watched newsreels in the cinema, and a 10-15 minute reel would contain maybe 3-5 news stories, each containing a few hundred spoken words augmented by text and visuals. Screenplays of that time were broken up into 2-4 minute scenes too. Now 1.5-3 minutes is the typical scene length in the movies.
When radio was king here in the US, headlines came at the top of the hour, morning news programs were a bit of a variety show, and evening news programs spent no more than a few minutes on each topic. Not much changed when TV took over. We still have headline news going all day, news mixed with entertainment in the morning, and a few minutes per topic is still the right pace for most news and variety shows.
I don't think it's coincidence that we consume all sorts of media in roughly 3 minute bites regardless of its richness or sparseness, and we keep gravitating to that length no matter the technology or format.
There seems to be another mode of the distribution around 15 minutes. Back in the news reel days, specials could take 10-15 minutes for a single topic. When I was a kid, we were shown film strips in the class room, and these were usually 10-20 minutes running time. Today's TV "news magazine" shows are broken into segments of similar length, usually 12-15 minutes. Longer articles in print magazines are typically 2500-4000 words, which takes 10-20 minutes to read. And the average book chapter length is in that range as well.
Now we have YouTube where the most popular videos average around 3 minutes in length, and the most common video length is about 12 minutes. It's hard to know how long people watch with YouTube, because everybody skips around. The "most replayed" feature suggests that longer videos are getting skimmed.
My pet theory is that we have four basic attention spans determined by how we use our short term memory, and these haven't changed much with technology because our biology hasn't changed much:
15-30 seconds. Headlines, clickbait, musical hooks, jingles, tweets and texts, radio and TV ads
2-4 minutes. Newspapers, news broadcasts, popular music, comedy sketches, movie scenes, general interest magazines, political flyers, advertising brochures, etc.
10-20 minutes. Long form news, special interest magazine articles, book chapters, instructional videos
2-3 hours. Captive audiences. Graduate school lectures, movies, concerts
I was going to say something more about entertainment/infotainment, but I'm close to 700 words already and risking TLDR.
Kamlorn on 13/10/2023 at 18:34
Quote Posted by Nicker
Clip thinking is the latest manifestation of the trend.
I can only assume what the trend you mean. But that last phrase inspired me to make little rewinding of our conversation through a short sentences. Right from the very beginning, the moment we all entered that "bus", according to my famous and wonderful metaphor.
Initial thought: Clip thinking is a phenomenon which was always with us. But those stupid people thinks it's appeared recently, muhahaha.(No definition or even description were given)
mxleader: What a nerd...
Heywood: Hey, would you like some new words? Short attention span, digital media, ENTERTAINMENT. *BOOOOOM*
Me: Cool, cool. But *started promoting his rather obscure continuation of his initial thought*. (That Kamlorn guy dont even listened him, what a bugaboo)
Nicker: Boooring! Give some definitions.
Me: *replying with some hebrew*
Nicker: Cool, cool. Did you know that the internet greatly compresses the time between cause and effect? But of course, clip thinking isn't a new thing, just a new word for an old thing. OK? Pss, I dont like clip thinking.
Me: Wow! What about that internet compressor?...
Well, I'm rather surprised we are still somewhere around my initial topic. I understand, it's a small talk, but it's a rare case in the Internet especially to speak about the same thing in general and during such a long time in particular.
Nicker on 14/10/2023 at 22:08
Quote:
I don't think it's coincidence that we consume all sorts of media in roughly 3 minute bites...
Goldfish: Woah. Three minutes? That's amazing. Wait... what's amazing? (Apologies to goldfish who actually have quite prodigious memories but whose attention span is more difficult to determine.)
Nice breakdown, heywood. Since significant changes in basic biological functions take tens of thousands of years to evolve across a species, it is unlikely that our fundamental cognitive abilities and preferences have been affected by new technologies. It is certain that the internet appeals to our lowest effort expenditure. Providers of media have found success in limiting the size of content bites. Remember the groans of mental overexertion heard around the globe when Twitter increased the character limit?
Quote:
Well, I'm rather surprised we are still somewhere around my initial topic.
The folks around here can grind on about the same shit for years. We are fans of a beloved game franchise that has been in the sales bin for two decades. Goldfish we are not.
Kamlorn on 15/10/2023 at 09:17
Wow, 238 wpm! We have had such reading exercises of wpm measurement back in school. It was the Ukrainian language and my result was 90 wpm, which was slightly above avarage, according to my mark and marks of my classmates. I assume my wpm much less now, I can read few pages for hours and cannot go further without rereading for couple of times. I feel that I do "sacrifice understanding" (whatever it means but I like that Nicker phrasse) reading faster, or until something will click in me signalising that mystery of understanding has happened.
