Distracted attention syndrome changes humanity

Are young people dying? Do people become more frivolous? You can say so, but scientists prefer to use other formulations: in their opinion, digital technologies contribute to the emergence of the syndrome of scattered attention from the absolute majority of the population. The human brain is not adapted for multi-tasking, which has already been repeatedly discussed at Habré. It's clear. But now doctors say that the consequences of long-term “multitasking” are already irreversible. Young people from the “digital generation” simply cannot concentrate on one thing for a long time (they cannot even read a single book to the end; for them even a few pages of text is already too much). Some experts believe that this is a very dangerous trend.

The book “Distracted: attention erosion and the coming dark times” is dedicated to this global issue (by Maggie Jackson). Maybe the author somewhere exaggerates, but the facts remain the facts: the scattered attention syndrome already now leads to thousands of deaths. Due to the scattered attention today, hundreds of people are dying in road accidents, technological accidents occur, people have serious mental problems, and the economy is losing billions of dollars due to a decrease in labor efficiency.

Overloading important channels of perception when switching the brain from one task to another can kill you instantly if you are driving a car. If the disease becomes chronic, then it kills you slowly. According to some doctors, chronic, long-term multitasking is just as harmful to human health as, for example, smoking. With age, people suffering from this disease will experience about the same symptoms as retired air traffic controllers. Their brains simply wear out to the limit, which contributes to the emergence of a whole bunch of neurological diseases.

Some experts believe that you need to train your attention concentration right at school, how to focus and ignore distractions. Such training should be one of the main tasks of the modern education system. To maintain health, a person must learn to ignore a mobile phone call.
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On the other hand, society can independently adapt to new conditions of life. Human relations will become more superficial and meaningless, the surrounding technical devices will become easier and safer so that a person does not screw up. The future generation will live in a simplified world and will not even be able to understand what they have lost. In principle, this is not a particular problem, just humanity will be a little different.

via Times Online