Goldfish Syndrome

What was that statistic about goldfish only having a 2-second memory?

"Tolstoy's top ten favourite French cheeses? Cool."

The question I always had was, how on earth could anyone know that? As far as I am aware, there have been no conclusive surveys or recall experiments conducted on our little aquatic friends. And I don't remember seeing any goldfish plastered with information-dump tattoos like the protagonist in Christopher Nolan's "Memento" to help them remember where their car keys were.

What does this have to do with the price of fish food, anyway?

A recent article in the Times by Arts Correspondent David Sanderson discusses how attention spans among humans are decreasing in our 'hyper-information' age, and it throws up some interesting contradictions.

On one hand, Elif Shafak, award winning novelist, stated that while her first TED talk was scheduled to be 19 minutes long, the guidelines a decade later were for only 13 minutes. The reason given by the organisers was that average attention spans had shrunk considerably in recent years.

An interesting counterpoint to that, though, is the fact that books are getting longer. Scottish novelist Sir Ian Rankin says in the same article that publishers now require that crime thrillers be at least 300+ pages long, and that that number has been growing steadily.

Some light reading.

So what exactly is going on here?

The picture is a confusing one and we are still only beginning to understand how certain technologies and lifestyles affect our brains, but there seems to unanimity on one thing — attention spans are getting shorter, and it is particularly noticeable in heavy users of social media where the addictive nature of the quick dopamine hit keeps users scrolling.

It is normal, perhaps, that older people who have more time to read are not hooked on TikTok dance meme shorts, and that they are happy to relax and digest a full experience at leisure. In the younger demographics, however, the picture is slightly more disturbing.

Average user hours of social media have skyrocketed to more than 18 hours per week, and for many, that number is far higher.

Not only does this train the brain to expect a new hit every few minutes or even seconds, it can actually create emotional downsides too. According to the aforementioned article, Elif Shafak states that; "We cannot process this much information and in the long run it makes us tired, demoralised, and then numb because we stop caring".

Not too great for the younger generations of Instagram addicts then.

It isn't just confined to social media either. The creative and performing arts have been growing similarly explosive and shallow to retain users' attention. There is a famous example given in a film school where a lecturer told his class to watch clips of films and clap whenever they saw an edit. Movies from the 70s and earlier had cuts from every few seconds up to a minute or more. Modern movies had multiple cuts per second. The resulting claps went from a slow, atmospheric smattering of claps to a barrage of applause.

Best Film Oscar Winner 2029?

The emphasis is on spectacle — and those stunts and CGI-fests don't come cheap, not to mention the astonishing salaries of some of the blockbuster stars.

Unfortunately, this leaves little left in the budget for script writing or character development. You know? Stuff that takes a bit of time.

Give the popcorn munchers as much dopamine as possible as quickly as possible. Otherwise, they'll just be scrolling on their phones.

Music has gone the same way too.

The average length of a pop song on Spotify is now only 3 minutes, compared to 3 and a half minutes in the 70s.

The trend is getting shorter and shorter.

No time for buildup or intros — and get that chorus hook in as soon as is humanly possible. Middle eight or guitar solo? You're having a laugh, right? This might explain why so many older legacy acts are building a new audience among a slightly demoralised Gen Z.

The point is, we develop or devolve according to our habits. Go to the gym or exercise regularly and our muscles and cardiovascular system get stronger. Sit on the couch and binge watch the latest Netflix series every weekend and those muscles are going to waste away. It's the same with our brains too. There is common advice to the elderly that indulging in crossword puzzles or sudoku has a beneficial effect on brain activity and possibly delays the inevitable decline that comes with age. Doing nothing and never utilising the gift of brain power can only have a detrimental effect on our growth, both as individuals and as a society.

There is common meme that references the 2006 comedy "Idiocracy". Rather than the extreme social satire that it was originally seen as, many now simply refer to it as a prophetic documentary with jokes.

And in a world where the reality TV leader of the most powerful country in the world appears to be hooked on spouting off every ten minutes on social media, maybe they have a point.