@@Serenity.Solstice I think you're right, that he didn't mean to be offensive, but at the same time he has an audience and spreading this kind of misinformation (being able to 'catch' or 'become' neurodivergent rather than it being something inherent you are born with) is harmful.. this video has major "I'm so OCD, I love cleaning!" Vibes.
honestly love that u talked about this because I always find your videos so well articulated and I was thinking about this issue and you just put it into words perfectly as always so slay. Also a while back when I noticed this abt myself, I actually used ur vids to get back into more long content vids so again slay
i think the ability to appreciate small things in life also nice like when i prepare some tea to myself or brew it (russian style) or just watch the window, look at the way that sun shines, the way that tree branches and all the crows that sit on it. and other birds whenever its a certain time of the year (ive seen one interesting one in the winter and one in the summer) its a bliss. time slows down seemingly to a halt and its not painful, but rather peaceful. i dont know how to describe it but it feels almost spiritual without belief in anything but then again i open tiktok and distract myself from the horrors of the world. or sometimes see them on it. id love to delete it but how will i see trinkets or new cool music?? i dont use it as much thankfully
sometimes when i have to drive i wont play any music and just drive listening to the sounds of my car and the stuff around me. its actually really calming (provided everyone's driving safely o.O)
@@helplessheroine2641 oh im glad to help someone to get back to my cult of appreciating small things of life theres something unimaginably beautiful in the process itself, i cant describe it for the life of me. im going insane
I honestly prefer longer videos (especially on youtube). Otherwise I have to keep finding new videos to watch & I also like it when videos are more in depth. A short fun video here and there is obviously fun too, but it also gets annoying quickly imo
Yeah I can't do tiktok for more than like an hour before im bored and my tiktok fyp is full of 1-3 min videos I also hate videos without much editing where the length is filled with waffling or just silence. I like condensed but rich with content for a long time
Not quite right. Most UA-cam videos used to be less than 5 minutes long. 5+ minute videos were considered long back then. A 10 minute video was like a feature film. Then UA-cam decided to pay you only if your video was 10 minutes or longer, which made lots of people stretch their content thin.
I feel like this is misleading. You also need to consider UA-cam is a relatively new medium. Long form 'video essays' are even more recent. When I was growing up, watching 2-3 minute sketch / amateur fail videos, a 7 minute UA-cam video was extremely long.
This is long…? I thought it was pretty short. I need constant stimulation from videos, so I prefer longer videos because otherwise I’ll spend the whole time looking for stuff to watch… longer videos means less searching for stimulation as it lasts me longer.
I was fully prepared to have a staring contest with you, Dunc lol Thank you for offering your opinion on this, and reminding us that it _is_ possible to regain your attention span!
Just want to add as a person with ADHD. It's not that ADHD makes you have a short attention span, it's that we can't choose what we pay attention to. It's like your brain is a TV, and somebody else has the remote. I think the actual name for ADHD is to blame for this perception. It's not really about having a deficit of attention. I just have lower dopamine levels than a normal person, which means I'm constantly chasing things that give me dopamine. For me, it usually means constantly fixating on creative projects. I can read books just fine, if I'm actually interested in them. If it's a subject or story I don't care about, that's when I break out the audiobooks and make sure I have something to occupy my hands. Even then it can be a challenge. Also there's a lot more than attention span that goes into ADHD, like emotional dysregulation, rejection sensitivity disorder, and poor organization.
Yes! Great explanation! For someone that was recently diagnosed with inattentive ADHD it is like a constant search to quench the thirst of depressed boredom. When I get bored it doesn’t just stop there, my brain goes into complete meltdown over being bored or having art block or something else. It becomes almost dangerous, sometimes so under-stimulated I want to die. Then there’s overstimulation where you want to sleep the internal panic away which is what I found out all that fatigue came from. My brain being so full of thoughts and worries it drove me into exhaustion, but finding that balance is so difficult too.
I love this comment. I have ADHD too, and I really hate it when people say they got adhd from social media. When people say that, it makes me feel frustrated because if you actually have Adhd you dont have the honor of getting it.
I'm a high school English teacher and will be sharing this video with my kids today and tomorrow! We're diving into Fahrenheit 451 and the impact of technology/loss of reading/loss of the ability to focus. This is such a great video, I enjoyed the multiple times I listened to it as I made their note sheet :) I will come back and update on reactions!
Year two of showing this video to my students. Last year's kids greatly enjoyed this video, and one of my students famously said: "Huh, homeboy's got a point." Excited to show this again to my classes today!
I think the main thing that helps me not have a horrible attention span is my disgust response to these things. It makes me feel bad about myself to view these gross attention seeking things
the fact that he was able to actually get me to engage with the ad and watch it the whole way through via gamifying it is really impressive, especially because i dont usually fall for that sort of trick. props
I was about to skip it but then was like hey wait, he's still talking, I might miss some of the discussion, but on the side I can watch a cute person proudly dropping their phone which made me cringe every time. So idk maybe throw your phone in every ad is the conclusion I came up with.
Theres a great book called "Deep Work" by Cal Newport that I've read 3 times. Highly recommend if you're looking to seriously train your brain into focusing intensely. One thing that I've noticed for writing youtube scripts, editing a video, learning a language, doing homework, etc. is that the best work NEVER comes quickly, you have to sit down for at least an hour before you actually get worthwhile work done. This is the basis of the book. Deep, highly focused work is valuable and produces valuable results. The people who can focus intensely will succeed.
Well, this is timely. I'm a high school English teacher. Today, as I told my students that we were going to watch a video and passed out their graphic organizers, I mentioned that it was about 20 minutes long and I noticed a student roll her eyes in exasperation. I joked with her and said, "I know, I know, 20 minutes! It's torture, right? So long!" and another student chimed in, "And no Subway Surfers, either." I asked what they meant. They explained that sometimes when people show movies on TikTok, there's also a video of someone playing a phone game underneath it. "Ah, to get around copyright claims?" I asked. "No," they said, "so that you'll have something else to watch." To be honest, what they said didn't really register with me at the moment. I was focused on getting the class going so I just said, "That's weird" and moved on. But thinking about it now, it is disturbing how much these things seem to be affecting my students' ability to focus.
It honestly probably did start as a way to avoid copyright. But after so many reuploads with many differing topics, we need new secondary videos, thus a new, although useless/generic, category is created, "Goldfish Videos" (what I like to call them) which try to keep your attention span with endless runners, endless stackers, endlessness everywhere, just something has to be moving on-screen constantly. Mobile games, DIWhys, satisfying, each trying to be more obnoxious than before
For me what is shortening my attention span is honestly how much stuff I have to do. On calmer days, I am able to focus on longer videos and I can risk engaging in something that doesn't seem entirely useful to me. But when there's a lot of stuff to do, I find myself skipping videos more quickly because I feel like if I procrastinate, it should at least be something relevant or worth my time. So I think a lot of the attention span problems stem from how busy our society is and how putting quantity over quality is highly valued.
Not gonna lie I actually got stressed tf out, but part of that is just from Eye Contact specifically being stressful for me. I was fully prepared to just stare at the phone for a full minute if I had to lmao.
I was watching at 1.3x speed, so it wouldn't have been too bad. LOL For some reason I find things easier to focus on when sped up. I discovered that with online university classes where I had a much easier time listening to the recordings sped up a bit, where in live meetings, I'd zone out between sections.
I noticed my own personal attention span getting shorter and shorter due to TikTok and other social media, I made baby steps to try and take breaks from my phone so I can focus on things that actually matter to me such as spending time with my family watching movies and reading books I like, I always leave my phone in my room unless I’m leaving the house or bring books with me instead of my phone whenever I spend time in our front yard and it’s helped me so much, and I feel so much happier and mentally healthy.
Dude, no joke in the middle of writing an essay on the subject of TikTok attention span issues, and some ways UA-cam can help that for English class. Bumped into this video while looking for some examples. Writing this essay has made me realize so much, and my TikTok usage has gone down significantly. Can't wait to watch this!
TikTok isn’t all bad, it’s just used very wrong. Honestly, I may start using it for quick things in drawing tips, what to do in {situation}, it’s not all bad, you just gotta find the right content.
@@PinxieShowOffical No I totally agree with you! The issues I focussed on in my essay were about the mental health aspects of TikTok over consumption, and they way it's positive feedback loop encourages the addiction. I also love using it for drawing tips :) TikTok isn't bad, but it has its consequences
I appreciate that note about ND people using overstimulation for comfort. With my job I sometimes get very tired or overstimulated by the environment and not being able to engage with special interests is hard, so I began listening to music/podcasts while I work. I'm like the only one in my job that actually does this so its pretty noticeable when I'm the only one in the office with an earphone in, but it keeps me alert, productive and overall happy and that counts for something. Great video :)
Yeah learning to read a book again was kind of a wake up call for me. I bought a physical, signed, book at a convention and I was super excited to read it but it felt like I had to force myself to because I couldn’t do something else while I read. It’s not an audio book, I can’t do chores while reading, I can’t play a game while reading. The only thing I can do is eat and read and I don’t want to just eat all day 😂 I’ve been taking it one chapter at a time, it definitely feels like exercise. The book is really interesting, too!! It’s just real hard to focus on just ONE thing at a time.
@@remotecontrolbrothers6453 that’s awesome 😂 Jonathan Maberry is the one who wrote Shuri’s storyline in Black Panther and was actually the first white writer for the comics/film. He was a really interesting guy!! I had to get a book from him after watching his panel. This fantasy series he wrote looked pretty awesome so I’m excited to get into it.
I've recently started reading again and it's been a hell of a struggle. I used to be one of those kids that inhaled at least one book a week but with the rise of the internet I almost stopped reading entirely. The way I motivate myself is by categorising my favourite activities by difficulty lvl. So scrolling yt short is the easiest and most useless, then a little harder is watching a tv show, then comes watching a movie, then comes reading. This way if I realise that im not paying proper attention to what im doing I can take a step back, think about the difficulty lvl I am attempting, and examine if im just too tired or if im not trying hard enough to pay attention. From there I decide wether to do something else or try again. It gets easier
A focusing trick I use when I need to get something done like cleaning: take a timelapse of yourself. It a. Keeps you from using your phone b. Helps you stay on task for the sake of a good timelapse and c. Gives you a satisfying treat on top of whatever you've just accomplished. I started doing this in college when I would take notes (camera pointing at my notebook) and now do it when I need to clean my apartment.
Describing ADHD as constantly getting distracted by other things is interesting. I (as someone who has ADHD) always get distracted by myself. Almost everyone has an internal monologue, but people with ADHD can’t shut it off without medication. It feels like I’m a UA-cam letsplayer and I’m playing life. Yes I’m doing stuff, but the main thing I’m always focused on is talking even though there’s no audience in my mind. I am never allowed to run out of things to say, so when I don’t have any more commentary on what I’m doing, I try to relate it to some other thought I’ve had to continue talking, and so then I’ll make a bunch of little errors if I’m forced to work on one thing while I’m talking about something else, or I’ll just switch over to the thing I’m talking about entirely. Sometimes external things come up that I’ll latch onto as “conversation” topics, but most of the distraction comes from inside rather than outside. Again, remember that every time I mentioned talking, I meant talking in my head. I never realized people without ADHD didn’t do this until I took medication 2 weeks ago and experienced what it feels like to not talk and just do things for the first time. I can still talk to myself when I need to, but it feels like a muscle I can flex rather than my heart muscles that are always there. Also it’s much closer to the volume of the world around me instead of a megaphone. Even though I have ADHD, because I specifically choose not to watch UA-cam shorts or even have TikTok or Instagram on my phone, I have a much better attention span than a lot of my friends, especially when I’m on medication. I personally think that ADHD should be called something other than Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, because it was named this way by scientists who could only the outside results of people with it, and it leads many people to believe that it’s the same thing as a short attention span, when in my experience they are two completely separate things. Great video though.
Almost every video I’ve watched on people who have adhd, they all mentioned how the attention defecit part should be renamed. It causes confusion for other people who think it’s just attention span, but also it’s just not accurate either. I do Like how ADHD sounds tho, I like saying it really fast it rolls off the tongue nice
That's a really good description. I used to get distracted in elementary school by daydreaming, playing pretend in my head, pretending to write fanmail to my favourite musicians if I ever got the chance to meet them, imagining potential jobs or games, or other things to do... I also used to get in trouble for singing in class, but I always have a song stuck in my head. If I don't, that means I'm really anxious and that's a bad sign. I tried meds, and I was like, wow I can sit without feeling like I need to be doing 4 things at once, but they only lasted a few months before side effects and after 2 years of trying 3 different types, all with issues, I just gave up and changed my schedule. At this point in time, I make my own schedule as long as I get my work done, but I'm hoping to apply for something more regular in the fall after my summer work ends, and I'm worried about keeping on track. In group work (I did a branch of computer science that deals with business solutions, IT, and websites), I was usually the brainstormer, I'd come up with tons of ideas, draw them up, and then the rest of the team would keep me focused and we'd chose what direction to go, and share the work to be accountable. But not all jobs work like that, so it tends to be a matter of having a good team, and finding a place where your differences are valued.
As someone with actually crippling ADHD (and diagnosed way before TikTok existed lmfao), the family guy slime videos or subway surfer videos or whatever whatever are absolutely not it for me, but I think it's interesting the way people who don't have ADHD but have developed this weird relationship with attention spans react much differently to them, need them/want them, etc. I hate them! Obviously other ADHDers do like them but I think it's interesting that several ADHD people I know in my actual life also don't react to these videos like people who've just developed short attention spans.
Exactly, of course it's different for every person. But for me it's much less seeking constant visual stimulation in any form and more meandering thoughts and very abrupt breaks in attention, so having multiple things on screen doesn't really change anything. I fidget a lot, so I'm guessing this sort of thing can act as a sort of mental/visual fidget for some people.
As someone who also has diagnosed ADHD, I feel the same way as you. I had to learn to accept a long time ago that, even if my brain will want to try, multi-tasking is not something that is possible for me if I need to do something that requires true focus. Like, I can listen to a podcast while I fold laundry, but there's no way I could watch a UA-cam video while writing an essay or actually follow the plot of a movie while scrolling through Twitter. In this way, having secondary stimuli would just be an obstacle to achieving the real focus that can be challenging to achieve in the first place. As you said, it manifests differently for different people, though.
Same. Known I've had ADHD since 5ever and all the things recently that have been shortening people's attention spans never worked for me. They just don't have enough substance for me to interact with for very long. I think moreso, I'll put on a six hour video essay, and pause if every half an hour to leave my room and do something else.
What’s interesting to me is how people (presumably) without ADHD will throw anything under the bus as a cause for ADHD. Like, I hate those “X thing over Y thing” videos. I’m diagnosed with ADHD. I take meds for the damn thing. Yet everybody who doesn’t know the first thing about it all have something to say about how that kind of content is for sure definitely causing ADHD 🙄
Mindfulness was one of the best and most relevant tips I found from DBT. If you are eating, then eat. My therapist explained today that even just drinking your coffee and only doing that, thinking "hmm this is really good" is mindfulness. Glad to hear other people raising awareness to this type of topic, I'm gonna try and read today.
As someone who was diagnosed with ADD in middle school, slowly feeling my mind become less and less able to focus over the years is terrifying. Sometimes, after being stuck in the “conveyor”, as you so aptly put it, hours later I can almost FEEL my brain rotting. I wish shortform content would go away but chances are it’ll just get worse. Stay strong everyone, may we make it through this nightmare together
I thought I was immune to this up until my late twenties. Yes, I'd spend a lot of time on social media, but I also justified that I'm not that addicted/affected because I also read and take walks and other ''offline'' stuff. But recently I noticed that my attention span, despite my good habits, has decreased so much that it's affecting my creative hobbies. Like, for the past year I can't sit at my desk and write two or three chapters of my novel like I used to. I can barely write one page a month at this point because I get too restless and need a quick rush of dopamine or a more interesting visual stimulant than a blank page. I think I'll need a big detox this summer.
@@DeathnoteBB the whole point is that they've noticed a decrease in attention span, that they didn't have before. Short contents as said is in this video rewires your brain to be used to the overstimulation, so dopamine deficiency arrives. It's not a deficiency from within but an environmentally caused imbalance.
There is no scientific evidence to support a “dopamine detox”, nor anything on having too much dopamine. Dopamine actually comes not from doing something, but from IMAGINING that thing. Anyway, long winded explanation I’m trying to give is maybe don’t jump straight into a detox. Just try to catch yourself doing things and maybe speak to a professional if you legitimately feel your attention span has just gone.
I kind of agree, the really big and flashy subtitles are annoying, but please please please understand that they are an accessibility aid!! I have issues with understanding what people are saying, and subtitles help so much. If I’m watching a movie with no subtitles I have to ask what’s going on every time something important happens. I was really relieved when you said you were going to keep the subtitles on lol. It’s funny you mention guard rails because that’s what subtitles are for me. (Side note, as someone with adhd, doing two things at once absolutely helps (me specifically) I usually have two(2) different homework tabs (usually from different classes) that I switch between. It helps keep me focused ironically. When I’m stuck on one I switch to the other and by the time I get stuck on that one I’ve usually figured out how to get un-stuck. And yes, you were right, while watching this video I was planning animal crossing.)
what’s interesting is that though I have ADHD, a lot of techniques designed to grab my attention don’t work because I’m so easily overstimulated. one reason I always watch your videos is because you’re relatively calm and cozy- I don’t like feeling yelled at. if u were to start implementing more strategies to increase retention time, i’d probably stop watching. I’m not immune- I’m definitely a two-things at all times kind of person. but in general i seek out long-form content, even on tik tok, and I’ve been growing increasingly frustrated with online content shifting towards short-form. for once in my life i’ve been reading MORE books. (another tip for reading- if it’s fiction, pick a soundtrack to match it for a more immersive experience!!)
@@KuncanDastner I'm also in a weird space with this! Because on one hand I am also a "two things" person, but on the other, if it's two 'new' things it almost immediately becomes TOO overstimulating (like, chores and music yes, but only if I've listened to that music before). I can't watch a movie and scroll twitter, or play a game and listen to a podcast, or whatever; my brain literally just shuts one of those inputs out. Like you said, sometimes I can use it to 'trick' myself into focussing harder. But like Liz said, I also prefer long-form videos over short ones - even when I'm not doing anything else. (I think my brain might actually treat the audio and video as two separate things, but that's another thought for another time.) This is my very long-winded way of saying that I agree with your video, and that I will definitely be sticking around for more; they're quietly comfortable in a way that I genuinely wish was more common on this platform (and on the internet in general).
Same for me. I like watching stream vods that rarely have any interruptions because it’s almost meditative. Also, for the book soundtrack thing: I’m a huge weeb and lots of the light novels I read have anime adaptions with soundtracks to accompany them. Same for when I’m reading manga. Other than that, if it’s a fantasy series the Violet Evergarden soundtrack has a good range of chill to hype to action tracks while still not overly suspenseful
It annoys me how I can't really read anymore and that music tip never came to mind. I'll certainly try that next time. Any idea what to use for textbooks?
@@PinHeadSupliciumwtf textbooks r a doozy, music doesn't really help. i never read them straight up- i go to the chapter summary at the end and write down all the "key points," then go back to the text and skim it for details on those key ideas. same with readings for a college class- read the intro and conclusion, write down the author's key points, then skim the text for how they supported their argument. usually classwork/discussions fill in the gaps if I miss anything lol.
i have adhd and honestly i dont use tiktok at all and i hate shortform content honestly, i love to dive into a good 3 hour long youtube video and enjoy every second of it. i was fully ready to have a staring contest too, we are often scared of silence as it tends to bring out some ppls thoughts, tho for me its moreso, im focusing on every little sound if its too quiet so i need some white noise at least (working in a noisy environment rly helps and i rly dont mind it)
very similar to your experiences, except for the silence, i freaking love hearing nothing but the distant cars, the wind and the songs that constantly play in my mind. yes, it sometimes happens some not very pleasant thoughts show up, but i think i've been able to harness them. i have not bothered with tiktok and i completely refuse to touch it, same with instagram, only that i downloaded it in case someone wanted to contact me thru there, but i avoid it, i have no incentive to check what's happening there. my favorite videos usually are in the ballpark of 15 to 30 minutes long and i commit my complete attention to them.
I have seen this coming 7 years ago. All these years of training myself not to fall victim to the algorithm, keeping my recommendations focused, and avoiding apps like Instagram and Tiktok have finally paid off.
I have ADHD and Dyspraxia. I’ve always functioned better doing two things at once. When I was a kid I would read books in class and I’d still hear the lecture and absorb all the information from both it and the book - better than I could if I did either of those things by themselves. When I need to memorize information for a test I make someone ask me the questions and if I don’t know the response, say it to me and have me repeat it until I can, while I play a video game or otherwise occupy part of my attention. That’s a neat trick I can do, especially since I grew up being told that it’s impossible for people to truly multitask. It’s like a little superpower. But it has also made me very susceptible to Two Things Disease. I first became aware that I had this problem back in 2019 and proceeded to do nothing about it. I still haven’t really fixed it because I don’t want to experience the discomfort. It’s making it hard to work now though, since I’m not supposed to have my phone out at work but during down moments when nothing is happening it’s really hard to just sit and have nothing to engage with. I’m glad I saw this video because it gave me a practical starting point to figuring out how to teach my brain to be okay with quiet moments.
honestly i think a piece of nuance that is missing from this vid is that many neurodivergent ppl actually function better w two things disease. like lots of ppl w adhd doodle while class and it helps them stay focused on the class, bc the lack of dopamine causes a need for increased stimulation. its why many neurodivergent ppl stim! but i also think that big tech is taking advantage of this and shortening our attention spans more than they need to be
@@valentinecore yeah, absolutely. When I was in school I faced a lot of issues with teachers refusing to let me do what would help me focus and preform best because they didn’t believe me. It was frustrating since in elementary school my teachers embraced my unique way of engaging with classes and praised me for it, and then I got to middle and high school and was berated and punished for the same thing. For the life of me I couldn’t get them to understand that someone could function differently than they did, despite being diagnosed with both those things I mentioned at age 7. I think that the knowledge of myself I had that doing two things at once is good for me also allowed me to sink deeper into the screen problem. I told myself I was doing what was good for me but it was really something insidious that someone out there seeks to profit over and it’s definitely gotten to a point where I realize it isn’t okay. Like, I can’t be comfortable even just playing a video game. I have to listen to someone talking at the same time. It causes me discomfort if I don’t have at least two forms of stimulation coming from technology at the same time. I think what I need is to get back to my old kinds of two things from childhood. Heck I remember being more successful at Mario while singing along to the radio but even going back to music instead of UA-camrs would be a step in the right direction for me.
@@valentinecore okay I haven't actually watched the video yet because I was worried he'd have left out neurodivergent people like SO MANY others do when talking about attention spans and it's honestly SO ANNOYING. I hate blanket recommendations for things that simply don't work the same when you are ND, it's so ignorant.
@@melbapeach162 He doesn't talk about it, but read the disclaimer at 10 Minutes in the video. This video isn't about neurodivergent people and how they need different stimulation, but about people who are negatively effected by the way our media has evolved.
I've been using a slightly different method that lets me use my 2 thing syndrome to my advantage. I'll find a good, long form video essay/movie/etc, and instead of just scrolling through my phone, I start working of a craft project. This helps me avoid using my phone, and by focusing on longer projects, I've been improving my attention span without really thinking about it. I watched this video while practicing bookbinding lol
It's incredibly how often I caught myself having the urge to scroll down to the comments or open anotehr tab. Since I didn't do it, my body told me to get up and walk around or to clean my glasses, to do something while I watch this! Thing is, not only are our attention spans being attacked for the sake of profit but the thought of doing multiple things at once is also more and more ingrained within us. Gotta be more effecient, productive, careful with your limited time and so on. It's maddening.
I realised that my attention span was reducing so I started reading books, that too without any music in a quiet environment. It was nerve racking at first but now I enjoy books and spend 2-3 hours at a stretch reading. There’s no way you can even expect short form content from a 500 page book, so reading really helped me to get back my attention span. I rarely watch Instagram Reels or UA-cam Shorts these days but whenever I do, I’m left with a sickening feeling of exhaustion of my entire dopamine supply. The real world is pretty fun tbh. I talk with people for hours, read books, etc. and now it’s all cool.
KUNC NATION !! I think another thing that plays a role in wanting to watch or do multiple things at once is that looming feeling of not getting alot of stuff done in a timely manner or the idea that being able to multitask is more productive . my attention span works in the way that i want to be able to draw and watch this video at the same time, but what ended up happening was me watching the video and not drawing at all LOL . and having too many things going on at once on screen still overstimulates me but the rabbit hole is tempting . thanks so much for the tips to help with building attention spans too !!
Deleting tiktok and Instagram has been the best thing for my attention span. Now I will happily sit through a 2 hour video essay on UA-cam whereas the very IDEA of that was difficult to think about beforehand
I was so ready for the silent stare-down at the end haha! Great video! I used to read so much when I was younger, and I have finally decided my lack of reading now comes from having my dang phone by me all the time. It takes conscious effort, but i can finally read again for at least an hour. Gotta keep at it!
I read far more on my phone these days than books, but I feel like I read more since getting a smart phone. That might have something to do with being on a forum from the 90s and reading a pile of threads.
I've never downloaded tiktok for this reason, but with Instagram reels and UA-cam shorts it's almost unavoidable. I have deleted both of these apps and I'm only using them on a desktop now, to avoid all that short garbage content.
I have diagnosed ADHD, but I somewhat paradoxically have one of the longest attention spans in my family. I've had to deal with this shit my whole life and I grew up before the Internet could get its hooks into me as basically a baby. So I figured out some of this stuff some time ago. In general, I try to stay away from short content, because while it's distracting for most people, I know that shit would just fuck my life up. I don't have any social media except UA-cam and messaging apps to stay in touch with people. I turn my phone off when I watch movies and I have it on silent most of the time. I even found out recently I can binge read for way longer than most people 4h+ (I still get distracted a lot and reread lots of pages, but it doesn't stop me reading altogether) I still probably watch too much UA-cam, but at least it's mostly I stuff I don't regret spending time on (As a note: I'm more H than AD, but in general ADHD is not just about attention span). My point is that if you're struggling with this and would like to change it, it might still be possible even if you do have ADHD. Just find what works for you and actively try to work on it.
I think one thing that people don't necessarily talk about with ADHD is that it's not just necessarily having a short attention span, but having problems regulating your attention in general. This is why some people with ADHD can become hyper-focused and spend several hours focusing on one thing. Sometimes I can get super into playing a game and my mind will want to ignore doing anything else--even taking care of myself.
@@madisonemily4083 to me it doesn't feel like a deficit of attention. The attention is strong and there's a lot of it. It's just not going where people think it should
@@alrighttumbleweed4782 that's the REAL ADHD struggle right there.. I think so many people these days think they have ADHD because they have short attention spans but then they don't have any of other symptoms (like hyper fixation, RSD, executive dysfunction, emotional dysregulation) ADHD isn't just "oh look, squirrel! 🐿️"
I am SO glad that I haven't been the only one silently fuming about this attention span bullshit. I have ADHD, and personally I just don't want to encourage my own problems. I want to keep my mind sharp, I want to engage with interesting long form media, but my own and my friends attention spans are literally broken. I know it is, my boyfriend always says no to watching videos that are super long or movies with me. My friends don't want to sit and listen to music with me, despite talking about how nice it is to do exactly that, listen together, because they "have to be doing something else." I'm so sick of an interesting video adding those videos on the side, because it DISTRACTS ME, IT WORKS! I hate it so much, I feel like a robot, the internet is so fucking hostile to exist on now, I've weaned off of it so much, I only use Discord to talk to about 6 people max, I rarely touch TikTok, and I deleted my Twitter, the internet is rotting and it makes me so sad, it was so cool when I was just a kid, and now it's a sewer. I wish I was allowed to feed my broken attention span on my own, I shouldn't be forced to over stimulate, I want to choose to watch 2 things. I block every single reddit story TikTok I see because they're always so sensationalist, fake, or made to make you mad...
I've found that picking up a craft/hobby that doesn't involve screens helps a lot, like instead of being on my phone while watching a movie, I'll work on an embroidery project. I feel more productive while still getting my overstimulation lol
Hey man, I just stumbled upon your video… on my for you page… which I watched the entirety of from the thumbnail preview… with several tabs open on my laptop… none of which are the homework I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t have ADHD but I have been really struggling with screen addiction lately and I just want to say thank you for not only validating that experience and also providing solutions. I’ve been trying to just get up and do ten jumping jacks whenever I open any social media just to snap my mind off of it but that’s rarely helped as much as I hoped it would. I think the trouble with making my environment boring is that almost everything I need to do and almost every distraction is all on one device, and it’s crazy hard to stay on task when it’s all right there. In any case thank you for providing solutions and illuminating all of the manipulation tactics happening here
The genius to put the cat moment right at the average retention time, well played. Overall great video, makes me want to make more efforts to regain control over my attention! Starting from this video, that I (proudly) watched without my phone in hand. Small step, but you dealt quite the inspiring content today, and I hope to carry on in these tracks.
10:40 is such a hilarious gag. I genuinely was ready to focus with no distractions for 1 minute and get lost in your eyes. Jokes like that are why you are top-notch!!!
I'd like to recommend Cal Newport's book "Digital Minimalism". He addresses all these concerns in a friendly, non-alarmist way and offers a practical solution. Re-learning how to be bored and not rely on digital distractions for comfort has changed my life in so many ways. Yeah, it's probably very ironic that he wrote a whole book about how to help our short attention spans.
I'm glad someone is speaking about this. I actually repulse to this idea and it has been SCARING me recently, I hate this whole idea of over-stimulation and corporations using scientific tactics to distract us, and put us in a loophole for money-making greed. Really sinister stuff but I'm really glad you've talked about this.
Gotta say, locking your phone up really does help with increasing attention span. I recently started working retail and during my work hours I have to keep my phone locked up in my locker to kill the temptation to check it while on the floor. I wear a basic digital watch to keep time and the lock makes getting my phone a hassle, so I end up having no temptation to check it. Plus talking with my coworkers and vibing to the radio keeps me stimulated in a much more healthy way :> So yeah, I might start using these methods in my own home when I need to focus on other things. Because I'm so sick of wanting to say, watch a movie, but constantly getting distracted by picking up my phone
this discussion has never made me happier that i queue up all of the videos of people i watch in a big list. i always, always watch videos all the way to the end because it's the best way to get to the next video. unless a video is actively upsetting me or giving me anxiety, i never skip. its nice to know that im doing something useful for the creators i love.
Good video. I've had ADHD symptoms since kindergarten, but didn't get diagnosed until adulthood because my mom didn't really believe in "alphabet diagnoses". I've practiced increasing my attention span for years now, and I find that I actually have a better attention span than some non-ADHD'ers I know now. It's absurd what short-form content has done to people.
I've only noticed that I have fallen into this recently myself and my attention span has become shot. I think in many ways, it started as a coping mechanism for my stress and because I didn't want to hear my thoughts. It's much easier to drown out my thoughts when I'm inundated with so much information. I think I have a long ways to go to repair my attention span and that is something that I don't need to work on and I hope that your tips will help! Something that has helped me work on rebuilding my attention span, is setting aside time where I don't have my phone. For me this is an hour before bed and I'm trying to do it half an hour in the morning. In this time I tend to read or journal or something else but it's really hard. Not bringing along my headphones to places also helps me. It's much harder for me to engage with audio content without headphones especially, in public.
I have ADHD (diagnosed) too, and I noticed how much my attention span suffered from the clock app and how overstimulating it was to me. I stopped opening it nearly a year go and I don’t miss it, highly recommend tbh. I also noticed that I have to make an effort at keeping my “attention stamina” I had managed to build up, but at the same time I also learned (once I got diagnosed which lead me to inform myself about my brain) that some of the “2 things disease” was actually needed for me to make things work. I found knitting & colouring very beneficial for keeping the attention for video essays/interesting podcasts/audiobooks. But I also keep trying to only do one thing at a time to not lose the ability. Recently I’ve been experimenting with focus music mixes for when I have to sit down at my laptop and be productive there. It took me a bit to find ones that weren’t too attention grabbing & that I liked enough. Overall I’m really trying to figure out the balance I need, but my attention span has improved again. ❤
i thought you mean the actual clock app and was wondering how wrong were you using it to harm your attention that much let's call it Musically, if feels demeaning idk
This is the single best way to implement an ad/sponsor that I have ever witnessed in the history of anything and everything (as in, to get people to watch it). Well played.
I actually hate this kind of overstimulation 😭 see there's the good and the bad. the good kind lets me focus and tend to my sensory needs and is also under my control. the bad kind puts me on edge and makes me angry and makes me not able to focus on Anything. I need my focus spread across several things to focus on anything, but I also have awful sensory issues yk
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to limit the amount of time spent on IG reels/YT shorts and now this video was in my recommended page. Thanks Duncan!
My ADHD is pretty gnarly, so I've never used social media other than UA-cam and a bit of Tumblr. I have successfully trained myself away from the dreaded clock app, but UA-cam shorts have their claws in me. In my defense, I mostly like little jokes or fun science facts, but still. It's really hard to tell when noises, movement, and bright colors are visual/audio stims or symptoms of a waning attention span. I'm gonna try to get on that.
Keeping a limit of just youtube and tumblr is already such a good step - and youtube shorts can be fun in moderation, sometimes I set a timer on my phone for 15mins that tells me to get off the app, maybe that could work for you too!
In avoiding instagram and youtube shorts (never even thought about getting tiktok), I've found the beauty and bliss of letting my mind wander like when I was a kid. Reading books before bed helps with sleep too. And it feels nice visiting the library every few weeks for a new bedside book. Cooking is nice with a long youtube video playing in the background, or a friend on the phone.
duncan being a passenger princess in the aftershow as always is killing me, also hi grace! hope yall can afford your trader joes and relish in decadence
I am coincidentally reading G.K. Chesterton's book on America, and his notes on Broadway. With the glittering lights and advertisements even back then. He said something like "How wonderous would this appear to one who can't read?" Because if you don't know what you are seeing, it is a kaleidoscope of glittering colorful beauty. But if you can read, you can see that the beauty is wasted on "Buy Seventh Heaven Cigars". Even back in the early 20th century, Chesterton could see it. And now we're in an absolute saturation of advertisement.
Getting a hobby that doesn't depend on screentime also helps a whole lot, esp for us NDS out there. My hobby is shiny rock hunting. I can hunt for shiny rocks or crystals I like in the dirt for hours, then spend a good 20 min scrubbing them nicely, then finally seeing the shiny ness in the light. And I can do all of this without staring at a screen or using my phone. Minus for a flashlight lol. Just finding things you can easily do really helps. I literally just do my rock hunting outside my tiny house and I find so many! And it's so easy to just go out, look around for a few, clean real quick.
I just want to say that was the most ingenious ad read I’ve ever seen, prefacing it by saying it’s an example of your point so that people would actually watch the ad instead of skipping
I'd never even thought of the fact that there might be an increase in ADHD diagnoses in the United States due to the increased shortform content that we're constantly being shown. I was just talking to one of my friends about how I think increased ADHD diagnosis has been happening because of TikTok in some way. I think a lot of older AFAB people (myself included until a few years ago) never got diagnosed when they were younger because teachers/parents don't tend to notice it, probably for a multitude of reasons. A lot of people are recognizing themselves in TikToks and going to doctors to get diagnosed. The shortform content issue is probably a big contributor to that in a lot of ways, and I think there is likely a lot of misdiagnosis, too, because of how closely the effects of shortform content mimics ADHD. Either way, it's making it harder to get my meds because of shortages. Also tell your girlfriend that she got me to make a Patreon to subscribe to yours. I'd been meaning to do it for awhile anyway for a few of the creators I watch, but she made me laugh so I finally did it.
It is HARD to get an ADHD diagnosis. It requires a lot of testing and multiple doctors sometimes. They don’t just hand them out. Plus ADHD isn’t JUST a short attention span, there are many other factors to put into that diagnosis. And meds are in short supply because people abuse them, not because the legitimate people are using them.
@@FaeAevalagreed, I went through hours of testing with my doctor to get my diagnosis, and I have it in my family history which also helped me realize that I’m not faking it. Also just hindsight. There were a lot of issues I had I put off due to laziness (hygiene struggles to the point of bullying, excellent test scores but poor grades due to missing homework, teachers calling me out in class for being sucked into a book rather than their lesson, etc etc) since I wasn’t the stereotype of adhd like my sister who was Dx as a kid is, behaved well, and did really well in school generally I slipped through the cracks.
Med shortages are happening because the federal government controls the caps on how much of a controlled substance can be manufactured each year, and despite the increase of diagnoses they've refused to increase the cap. So don't blame people who survived a pandemic and recognized that their coping strategies/adaptations weren't working in a radically different environment than the one they'd always lived in.
@@mffngrffls I feel you, as someone who also didn't fit the stereotype of ADHD. Just wanted to say that I don't think those things were laziness, but executive dysfunction (the idea of laziness isn't actually a thing, not doing something you "should" do is generally for a reason, not just not wanting to do it, if that makes sense?)
@@FaeAeval Yeah it’s seriously not as easy as everyone online recently seems to think it is. “Everyone is ADHD now because of low-attention span content!” is a wildy reductive take and incorrect anyway. Source: I have ADHD, was diagnosed by a therapist, am now on medication for ADHD that helps a lot and caffeine makes me wanna pass out.
Such an unrelated comment but you got me in the feels with the 7pm ACNL soundtrack at 1:50. I heard that piano intro and immediately I was transported to late 2019 (I picked up the game late I own that) during the bushfires (I'm an aussie) where we couldn't go out, all we could do was stay inside and I got so invested into that game, playing that with the constant faint smoke smell in the air. It shouldn't be nostalgic but it strangely is.
never downloading tiktok made me feel left out a few years and deleting instagram felt like cutting people out but those are two of the best decisions I've ever made. I feel... more aware. I see the signs of media addiction in my friends and it's scary. I think more people should watch this video.
i installed “one sec” onto my phone, especially for tiktok. it makes me wait 6 seconds before the app opens and log why i’m opening it so i actually have to think about why i’m watching tiktok. if i have an hour and i just want to relax with the dopamine slot machine? sure, that’s fine. i have six seconds to take a deep breath. i have to be somewhere in 30 minutes but i just sat down and opened tiktok instead of putting my shoes on? not great.
I’m the kind of neurodiverse person that uses overstimulation to an advantage, especially if it’s overstimulation I can control. I can’t handle silence. I really want to get back into reading, and I read a good 60 pages of a new book while waiting in a lobby for an hour, but I struggle with reading at home or when I have literally anything else to do. I don’t have a solution quite yet, but the finger thing might help! Putting more of my body to work and remembering to move my finger would probably help me stay actively focused. So thank you!
Oh silence sucks, I get you there. You can also use a piece of paper to slide down the page as well to take it sentence by sentence, I hope that can work out for you!
@@KuncanDastner I actually ended up finishing the book I mentioned, a mix of using my finger to track the page and putting on a ‘read with me’ UA-cam video to mirror really helped :))
I deleted TikTok a while ago for unrelated reasons, but it’s helped me realize how bad it was for me. I used to not be able to finish a 10 minute video but now I can sit down for half an hour+ watching a video about Minecraft. If you want to help fix your attention span I would recommend doing the same.
Too true. I'm still in this, even though I've made huge improvements through a number of ways. I used to constantly have my mind racing, making references, forming opinions on every thing there is, talking to myself. I gave away my smartphone, replaced it with a Nokia 1208, I stopped watching UA-cam Shorts and started avoiding that crappy, undignified modernity, like what you described exists in many videos these days, and most difficult of all, I learned to let my shoulders down and relax. Most things don't really matter, at least not to me, or to you. Modern life is an endless array of choices, so you should only choose the stuff that makes you feel happy. Not stimulated, but happy. Play an instrument, sing a song, lift weights (Almost at the 1000 lb powerlifting total! 💪), ride a bike, practice a sport, read a book, write something, whether it be music, poetry, or a manuscript! You don't need to and can't know or see everything. Actually doing meaningful things is humbling. It will probably make you realise just how difficult these things you have trivialised are. I still keep watching UA-cam videos, and I know it makes me unhappy, but I've been doing this since I was 11. That's more than half my life ago now. Turning 23 this year. At any rate, you aren't responsible for the entire world. You are not accountable to it. Live your life. Not anyone else's! I feel that lifting weights has helped me a lot with my attention span and detoxing from overstimulation. Finding purpose in your real, actual life, in something that in no way involves screens, the internet, or anything of the sort, makes real life a lot more interesting to live. *It's not just that the draw to the internet is strong. The draw to the real world is weak.*
This is the first video I’ve ever seen of you, and I really like you already. 1. You’re smart 2. You’re funny 3. You have a cat 4. You love your girlfriend
I don't think two things is always bad. When I watch UA-cam videos, I'm often on a coloring app on my phone because I'm fidgety and like having something to do with my hands. It depends on the video though. I almost always do it with commentary, because it's mostly just talking and I'm able to glance up frequently and catch the necessary visual bits. I sometimes watch D&D stuff, and I sometimes play Celeste when I'm doing that because I don't really have to think about it (I'm a speedrunner, and in this context I would just be running through ILs, not doing any meaningful practice or anything), and those videos are usually quite long and I don't really need to be looking. I almost never look at my phone when I'm watching movies though. I put it in my pocket and watch the movie. I read off of my phone, but if I notice myself closing the Kindle app to look at something else more than once, it means that I'm not able to focus in that moment and I come back to my book later. I also read when I'm eating, so I'm still doing two things at once. It's fine to split your attention sometimes, it's just important to be mindful of when you're doing it, and not do it all the time.
I love your videos because you are one of the most positive and nuanced commentary channels out there. It's easy to fall into hopelessness when talking about the topics you usually approach, but your videos allways have a hopeful spin to them.
i do wanna say that subtitles aren’t just for attention-seeking clickbaiters, but are genuinely helpful for those who are hard of hearing and/or deaf,, they don’t have to be obnoxious, but putting subtitles in your videos aren’t all bad
It wasn't the split screen. It was the "find the flaw" type question you asked before the ad. Smooth move. I watched the whole damn thing. And judged the fingerprints on your screen even as I have my own. Bravo.
Why is it an issue doing two things at once? I recently got diagnosed with ADHD and I’ve discovered that it’s really helpful to keep me focused on stuff I need to be doing. For example listening to ambient/instrumental music when I’m studying/reading, or having podcasts on while I’m doing chores. Having something else on means I’m way more likely to actually do the things I need to and to stay focused on them
This! I also focus way better on tasks if I'm doing multiple things, like listening to something while doodling or having something to fiddle with in general while talking with somebody
@@rookideetrainer1635 yes, I was diagnosed with it in the late 90s, was on medication for it until 2014. It's not a real disorder. There is no ideal attention span innate within the brain. Believing that I was disordered only ever discouraged me from developing primary attention skills, which are not innate but are learned. What kind of disappoints me about this video is that the author makes such a compelling case that attention spans are tied up inherently to the culture and the media in which we are asked to pay attention. Which is to say that our attention spans are in fact culturally reinforced. He makes the case that more and more people are experiencing attention deficits without having ADD, because the dominant media environment thrives off short attention spans. But then he doesn't question ADD, and that disappoints me. The truth is, if you just backwards engineer the argument he's making into previous media environments, you see our culture's collective attention spans have been decreasing more and more over the decades. "ADD" is just the end result of that. This process has accelerated so much so that now we see ordinary people with attention deficits more severe than what would have been diagnosed as ADD two decades ago, with no history of ADD in childhood. To give one example of how pretty much no living person alive right now would have survived in previous media environments: consider that presidential debates in the 19th century were over 7 hours long. They are described in news papers as being huge family gatherings where even children and infants attended. No child today would be able to sit through that. Not to mention, church services were regularly 3-4 hours long, and you didn't attend only in the morning but also the evening. Every single person alive today would have ADD by their standards.
@@sameash3153 Except this is something I've struggled with my whole life and learning these tools and exactly how to keep the parts of my brain that are searching for stimulation occupied allows me to focus way better than I ever could before (I'm 38 btw). Also you still haven't explained why it's bad to do two things at once if it does in fact help you focus better.
I've been re-training myself to focus on books by reading them aloud to myself, full dramatic performances. i felt kind of silly for it, but this made me feel a lot better because it really is working to improve my attention span!
as someone who's autistic and had ADHD I've been doing a lot of this kind of mindfulness and it helps so much! specifically rather than aiming to just eliminate bad habits like doom scrolling I'm making the effort to instead recognize when I'm understimulated and do something more productive about it. sure, playing a game on my phone while simultaneously watching a youtube video will keep my brain from yelling at me but it's genuinely more fulfilling to instead take it as a sign and do something more actively engaging. is youtube not enough engagement for me? maybe I'll go play a video game, write while listening to music, or make some art. I find that single activities that are more actively engaging make me so much happier than just stacking on multiple low-effort activities
oddly enough, my ADHD actually makes it impossible for me to do multiple things at once. My focus has to be all or nothing. So if i'm on my phone doing anything while watching TV, i'll miss 90% of the show. I have to pause youtube videos/games to read and answer texts. I can't even study or work with music in the background if it has prominent lyrics (unless they're in a foreign language). And to be honest i'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing
i was completely prepared to do the staring contest lol. really though, this is a great video, and i find it absolutely hilarious that this is the video i was planning to watch on another monitor as i did my work lol. i like the tip of using your finger when reading, it sounds like good advice!!
*2 things disease* OHMYGODYES. I have had no idea what to refer to this as, it’s been like the entire way I’ve counted my own ADHD during those moments where my meds fall short or if I just straight up forgot to take them. Even if that wasn’t the main point you had hoped people would take from your video, randomly sharing that term alone helps greatly, as now I have a way to explain my weird working habits to people instead of letting them assume I’m just slacking. Great video man!
Yeh i really needed this one. i actually noticed how much my attention span shortened when I started to click more on those tiktok like content. it sucks alot because i couldn't watch all the people i liked watching before because my brain just wonders and becomes bored. I can't even draw anymore. i used to have the attention span that could last me for hourssss, but now I can't even last a few minutes without opening my phone
I also have crippling ADHD, and when my brain is needing multiple forms of stimulation, I've found that using fidgets helps a lot and it's better for my brain than just having multiple tabs open. That way I can still keep my eyes on the screen, while giving myself multiple forms of stimulation that my brain needs.
It's wild hearing someone saying exactly what I've been struggling to find the words for these past few months. I've struggled with ADHD and general inattentiveness all my life, and after quarantine I noticed it had gotten to the point where I couldn't do--well anything really. I've been picking up reading lately and it's really helped me focus in, at least for a little while. Will definitely be trying the finger-follow-along trick as my biggest issue seems to be forgetting which line I'm on. Anyhoo, I've rambled on long enough. Lovely video, keep up the great work
I appreciate the distinction between ADHD and two things syndrome. I have ADHD. Recently diagnosed but looking back, the only reason I wasn't flagged was because my grades were good and I liked most of the subjects. I had all the symptoms. Its just with the onset of two things syndrome, everything about ADHD has been magnified to an unbearable level. Its genuinely a struggle to do basic things.
I never really faltered in class either other than my anxiety starting to make me become absent more often over the years and my undiagnosed ADHD being a crooks of my trouble focusing because my brain was going a million miles per hour. Teachers often gave reports to me with confusion like “Is a joy to have in class but finds it hard to complete assignments”. Which is something my psychiatrist talked about that many other undiagnosed students had in their report cards. It was impossible for me to concentrate on things my brain wasn’t interested in like maths and geography, but what I did focus on, I did really well at. Homework was the bane of it all because my brain would switch off after school and it was hard to get it to switch on again, but also my anxiety was through the roof over the exhaustion of having to do work after school.
I was actually told by a university advisor that the two things idea is better for people with ADHD. Pick two or three subjects, and go back and forth between them if you're struggling to work on one at a time. So for me, that was usually writing a paper, and working on a programming assignment. Or in grade school, do a few math problems, and then work on a geography assignment for a bit before going back to do a few more math problems. But I relate, I wasn't diagnosed until university because my grade school teachers were really good at providing the extra help, being patient with me, and I usually had honours (85% or higher average). But that was due to lots of homework, and teachers willing to give me an extra push when I needed it. I also would get in trouble for singing because I always have a song in my head. I find it helps sometimes.
As someone with ADHD, i find it very funny that every time these clips come up on my FYP on TikTok, my brain is already doing so much that it just completely scrolls past it together. My brain is always distracted with something and UA-cam has been an app which I always use because I need background noise to do things. It’s why I have video essays, deep dives and documentaries all over my reccomended since they’re amazing background noise alongside helping me gain perspectives which I never thought of before. I just found your channel through this video and I like your content, your cat makes it even more better since I LOVE cats with a huge passion and makes me incredibly happy alongside productive.
I've been trying to focus on one thing at a time myself and, since then, I feel like the concept of time's taken a whole new meaning. What worked for me is remove any form of "for you" social media on my phone, specially the ones with TikTok format videos. Now I only go into UA-cam from my computer and, I'm able to find videos like these and enjoy them a whole load more, one at a time! I would love my loved ones to start doing this as well, (specially my mum, who can't watch a TV series without doing something else) but I'm not sure how to do it without coming across as a know-it-all. Thank you for this video, I'm glad to see the issue acknowledged in such a hopeful way. You got yourself a new sub! (I hope this helps in avoiding your girlfriend's death from starvation.)
I don't usually leave comments but that ad was really clever - usually I just skip through them, but you actually gave me an incentive to watch it, which a lot of other UA-camrs don't do.
I can totally relate to this video because I do it so much- for example, I always fall victim to the “short-form content Minecraft parkour” Or when I’m playing a video game, I usually have something else in the background like a documentary ._. Also, the sponsorship was PERFECTLY integrated, nice job
I like when someone finally talks about this problem. To make you glad (hopefully), i watched it to the end. Fullscreen. Though i've been eating all this time, as usual, basically what 90% of videos are to me
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6:10 "I caught a bad case of ADHD"?
Fucking hell.
@@melbapeach162 as someone with diagnosed ADHD for years now, I understand why you made this comment, but I don't think he made it to be offensive.
@@Serenity.Solstice I think you're right, that he didn't mean to be offensive, but at the same time he has an audience and spreading this kind of misinformation (being able to 'catch' or 'become' neurodivergent rather than it being something inherent you are born with) is harmful.. this video has major "I'm so OCD, I love cleaning!" Vibes.
honestly love that u talked about this because I always find your videos so well articulated and I was thinking about this issue and you just put it into words perfectly as always so slay. Also a while back when I noticed this abt myself, I actually used ur vids to get back into more long content vids so again slay
I watched the ad segment at 0.25 speed to help maximize your average engagement, you're welcome x
It's also worth noting that sometimes doing a menial task without overstimulation helps the mind wander and come up with solutions.
I also appreciate how structured your videos are, while seeming so natural. It's very inspirational for me trying to make an actual video
i think the ability to appreciate small things in life also nice
like when i prepare some tea to myself or brew it (russian style) or just watch the window, look at the way that sun shines, the way that tree branches and all the crows that sit on it. and other birds whenever its a certain time of the year (ive seen one interesting one in the winter and one in the summer)
its a bliss. time slows down seemingly to a halt and its not painful, but rather peaceful. i dont know how to describe it but it feels almost spiritual without belief in anything
but then again i open tiktok and distract myself from the horrors of the world. or sometimes see them on it. id love to delete it but how will i see trinkets or new cool music?? i dont use it as much thankfully
sometimes when i have to drive i wont play any music and just drive listening to the sounds of my car and the stuff around me. its actually really calming (provided everyone's driving safely o.O)
@@fool4343 i need to do that more, thanks for the reminder
@@helplessheroine2641 oh im glad to help someone to get back to my cult of appreciating small things of life
theres something unimaginably beautiful in the process itself, i cant describe it for the life of me. im going insane
When he said he's not gonna force us to watch him stare for a minute, I actually paused it and started at him for a minute, just out of pure spite.
I was genuinely disappointed, i was basically ready to just sit there and stare
He didn't do it, not because he wasn't being sincere, but because he knows the algorithm would punish him for the viewers he would lose.
I was gonna do it but he wouldn't let me ):
I honestly prefer longer videos (especially on youtube).
Otherwise I have to keep finding new videos to watch & I also like it when videos are more in depth.
A short fun video here and there is obviously fun too, but it also gets annoying quickly imo
Agree. A long video is like a long hug. Keeping me company
yeah i prefer to hear ppl flesh out their thoughts and give real nuance. not just making a sound-bite that will do well in the algorithm
i usually alternate btwn longform youtube vids or movies for this exact reason
I'm using YT for long videos, tiktok for short ones and now anything under 25 miniutes on YT annoys me 😭
Yeah I can't do tiktok for more than like an hour before im bored and my tiktok fyp is full of 1-3 min videos
I also hate videos without much editing where the length is filled with waffling or just silence. I like condensed but rich with content for a long time
The fact this is considered “long” shows how different our attention spans have become. Before, 20-30 was long and 1+hours was a huge length for me
Thats why I started watching shows so I can escape the youtube shorts with the family guy and some game under
Not quite right. Most UA-cam videos used to be less than 5 minutes long. 5+ minute videos were considered long back then. A 10 minute video was like a feature film. Then UA-cam decided to pay you only if your video was 10 minutes or longer, which made lots of people stretch their content thin.
I always thought 10 mins is long
I feel like this is misleading. You also need to consider UA-cam is a relatively new medium. Long form 'video essays' are even more recent. When I was growing up, watching 2-3 minute sketch / amateur fail videos, a 7 minute UA-cam video was extremely long.
This is long…? I thought it was pretty short. I need constant stimulation from videos, so I prefer longer videos because otherwise I’ll spend the whole time looking for stuff to watch… longer videos means less searching for stimulation as it lasts me longer.
I was fully prepared to have a staring contest with you, Dunc lol
Thank you for offering your opinion on this, and reminding us that it _is_ possible to regain your attention span!
Same I was squaring up!
Lol me too! Kinda bummed XD
me too, i was excited already :(
I was also up for it
I read this comment before I got to that part of the video and I still got ready for it like it was gonna happen 😭
Just want to add as a person with ADHD. It's not that ADHD makes you have a short attention span, it's that we can't choose what we pay attention to. It's like your brain is a TV, and somebody else has the remote.
I think the actual name for ADHD is to blame for this perception. It's not really about having a deficit of attention. I just have lower dopamine levels than a normal person, which means I'm constantly chasing things that give me dopamine. For me, it usually means constantly fixating on creative projects. I can read books just fine, if I'm actually interested in them. If it's a subject or story I don't care about, that's when I break out the audiobooks and make sure I have something to occupy my hands. Even then it can be a challenge.
Also there's a lot more than attention span that goes into ADHD, like emotional dysregulation, rejection sensitivity disorder, and poor organization.
agree
Yes! Great explanation! For someone that was recently diagnosed with inattentive ADHD it is like a constant search to quench the thirst of depressed boredom.
When I get bored it doesn’t just stop there, my brain goes into complete meltdown over being bored or having art block or something else. It becomes almost dangerous, sometimes so under-stimulated I want to die. Then there’s overstimulation where you want to sleep the internal panic away which is what I found out all that fatigue came from. My brain being so full of thoughts and worries it drove me into exhaustion, but finding that balance is so difficult too.
@@lulub517 Boredom is painful for people with ADHD!
I love this comment. I have ADHD too, and I really hate it when people say they got adhd from social media. When people say that, it makes me feel frustrated because if you actually have Adhd you dont have the honor of getting it.
Duncan thank you I was nearly falling into the family guy slime video loophole. You made me snap out of it
Bless your heart
@@dustyyshellz1320 thank u
@@julsglanz7929 SAME but then I get dragged into it and I don't even like family guy??? 😭😭
FELT THIS !!!!!!! I WAS SO CLOSE TO BECOMING ADDICTED TO THAT LOOPHOLE TOO😭
was gonna like this comment but it's at 666 right now and that is so perfectly cursed
I'm a high school English teacher and will be sharing this video with my kids today and tomorrow! We're diving into Fahrenheit 451 and the impact of technology/loss of reading/loss of the ability to focus. This is such a great video, I enjoyed the multiple times I listened to it as I made their note sheet :) I will come back and update on reactions!
Huh I read that for school last year!
That book was so good.
Year two of showing this video to my students. Last year's kids greatly enjoyed this video, and one of my students famously said: "Huh, homeboy's got a point." Excited to show this again to my classes today!
really appreciated when u gave ur cat the mic they really made some important points
She really said "mmmrm!"
they're SO opinionated, they'll be back trust me
569 nice
@@KuncanDastner They? I only saw one of them.
@@TheBcoolGuysame. Confusion.
I think the main thing that helps me not have a horrible attention span is my disgust response to these things. It makes me feel bad about myself to view these gross attention seeking things
the fact that he was able to actually get me to engage with the ad and watch it the whole way through via gamifying it is really impressive, especially because i dont usually fall for that sort of trick. props
oh my fucking god, i didn't even realise. I just watched this full ad without a second thought
that's genuinely genius
I was about to skip it but then was like hey wait, he's still talking, I might miss some of the discussion, but on the side I can watch a cute person proudly dropping their phone which made me cringe every time. So idk maybe throw your phone in every ad is the conclusion I came up with.
oh my god, i couldnt lol, i hate ads
I only watch drew Gooden ads
Theres a great book called "Deep Work" by Cal Newport that I've read 3 times. Highly recommend if you're looking to seriously train your brain into focusing intensely. One thing that I've noticed for writing youtube scripts, editing a video, learning a language, doing homework, etc. is that the best work NEVER comes quickly, you have to sit down for at least an hour before you actually get worthwhile work done. This is the basis of the book. Deep, highly focused work is valuable and produces valuable results. The people who can focus intensely will succeed.
Nice to see you here and yeah I've noticed that too
Well, this is timely. I'm a high school English teacher. Today, as I told my students that we were going to watch a video and passed out their graphic organizers, I mentioned that it was about 20 minutes long and I noticed a student roll her eyes in exasperation. I joked with her and said, "I know, I know, 20 minutes! It's torture, right? So long!" and another student chimed in, "And no Subway Surfers, either." I asked what they meant. They explained that sometimes when people show movies on TikTok, there's also a video of someone playing a phone game underneath it. "Ah, to get around copyright claims?" I asked. "No," they said, "so that you'll have something else to watch."
To be honest, what they said didn't really register with me at the moment. I was focused on getting the class going so I just said, "That's weird" and moved on. But thinking about it now, it is disturbing how much these things seem to be affecting my students' ability to focus.
I just graduated high school not even a year ago. People being like this terrify me and worries me for our future as a race.
I blame tiktok for it all
Entire generations are being groomed to have gold fish level attention spans
It honestly probably did start as a way to avoid copyright. But after so many reuploads with many differing topics, we need new secondary videos, thus a new, although useless/generic, category is created, "Goldfish Videos" (what I like to call them) which try to keep your attention span with endless runners, endless stackers, endlessness everywhere, just something has to be moving on-screen constantly. Mobile games, DIWhys, satisfying, each trying to be more obnoxious than before
@@Czarbucks6146 it was probably said as a joke cuz it’s a meme now, I’m in high school and it seems realistic
For me what is shortening my attention span is honestly how much stuff I have to do. On calmer days, I am able to focus on longer videos and I can risk engaging in something that doesn't seem entirely useful to me. But when there's a lot of stuff to do, I find myself skipping videos more quickly because I feel like if I procrastinate, it should at least be something relevant or worth my time. So I think a lot of the attention span problems stem from how busy our society is and how putting quantity over quality is highly valued.
When you said “ A full minute of eye contact” I sat up. I was ready to go!!!
I was unironically disappointed as well 😭😂
Not gonna lie I actually got stressed tf out, but part of that is just from Eye Contact specifically being stressful for me. I was fully prepared to just stare at the phone for a full minute if I had to lmao.
Ditto
Meanwhile autistic people over here wondering why we are getting punished suddenly xD
I was watching at 1.3x speed, so it wouldn't have been too bad. LOL For some reason I find things easier to focus on when sped up. I discovered that with online university classes where I had a much easier time listening to the recordings sped up a bit, where in live meetings, I'd zone out between sections.
I noticed my own personal attention span getting shorter and shorter due to TikTok and other social media, I made baby steps to try and take breaks from my phone so I can focus on things that actually matter to me such as spending time with my family watching movies and reading books I like, I always leave my phone in my room unless I’m leaving the house or bring books with me instead of my phone whenever I spend time in our front yard and it’s helped me so much, and I feel so much happier and mentally healthy.
Dude, no joke in the middle of writing an essay on the subject of TikTok attention span issues, and some ways UA-cam can help that for English class. Bumped into this video while looking for some examples. Writing this essay has made me realize so much, and my TikTok usage has gone down significantly. Can't wait to watch this!
Oh that's so interesting!!! U hope this was able to give you at least one source to look into, good luck with the essay!
@@KuncanDastner omg tysm !! Loved the video as always :)
TikTok isn’t all bad, it’s just used very wrong. Honestly, I may start using it for quick things in drawing tips, what to do in {situation}, it’s not all bad, you just gotta find the right content.
@@PinxieShowOffical No I totally agree with you! The issues I focussed on in my essay were about the mental health aspects of TikTok over consumption, and they way it's positive feedback loop encourages the addiction. I also love using it for drawing tips :) TikTok isn't bad, but it has its consequences
@@KuncanDastner thanks for the encouragement!! I got a 4.0 in every competency for the essay :)
I appreciate that note about ND people using overstimulation for comfort. With my job I sometimes get very tired or overstimulated by the environment and not being able to engage with special interests is hard, so I began listening to music/podcasts while I work. I'm like the only one in my job that actually does this so its pretty noticeable when I'm the only one in the office with an earphone in, but it keeps me alert, productive and overall happy and that counts for something.
Great video :)
Yeah learning to read a book again was kind of a wake up call for me. I bought a physical, signed, book at a convention and I was super excited to read it but it felt like I had to force myself to because I couldn’t do something else while I read. It’s not an audio book, I can’t do chores while reading, I can’t play a game while reading. The only thing I can do is eat and read and I don’t want to just eat all day 😂
I’ve been taking it one chapter at a time, it definitely feels like exercise. The book is really interesting, too!! It’s just real hard to focus on just ONE thing at a time.
one chapter at a time is progress!! I'm glad this challenge is yielding positive results for you
What book?
@@remotecontrolbrothers6453 Kagen the Damned by Jonathan Maberry!
@@ameliavelasco8602 looks good! Funny I’m reading a fantasy rn with ‘kaigen’ in the title
@@remotecontrolbrothers6453 that’s awesome 😂
Jonathan Maberry is the one who wrote Shuri’s storyline in Black Panther and was actually the first white writer for the comics/film. He was a really interesting guy!! I had to get a book from him after watching his panel. This fantasy series he wrote looked pretty awesome so I’m excited to get into it.
I've recently started reading again and it's been a hell of a struggle. I used to be one of those kids that inhaled at least one book a week but with the rise of the internet I almost stopped reading entirely. The way I motivate myself is by categorising my favourite activities by difficulty lvl. So scrolling yt short is the easiest and most useless, then a little harder is watching a tv show, then comes watching a movie, then comes reading. This way if I realise that im not paying proper attention to what im doing I can take a step back, think about the difficulty lvl I am attempting, and examine if im just too tired or if im not trying hard enough to pay attention. From there I decide wether to do something else or try again. It gets easier
A focusing trick I use when I need to get something done like cleaning: take a timelapse of yourself. It a. Keeps you from using your phone b. Helps you stay on task for the sake of a good timelapse and c. Gives you a satisfying treat on top of whatever you've just accomplished. I started doing this in college when I would take notes (camera pointing at my notebook) and now do it when I need to clean my apartment.
This is so genius I'm borrowing this - you might've just saved me entire days worth of time
I do the same thing!! It’s super helpful for me! ^^
Describing ADHD as constantly getting distracted by other things is interesting. I (as someone who has ADHD) always get distracted by myself. Almost everyone has an internal monologue, but people with ADHD can’t shut it off without medication. It feels like I’m a UA-cam letsplayer and I’m playing life. Yes I’m doing stuff, but the main thing I’m always focused on is talking even though there’s no audience in my mind. I am never allowed to run out of things to say, so when I don’t have any more commentary on what I’m doing, I try to relate it to some other thought I’ve had to continue talking, and so then I’ll make a bunch of little errors if I’m forced to work on one thing while I’m talking about something else, or I’ll just switch over to the thing I’m talking about entirely. Sometimes external things come up that I’ll latch onto as “conversation” topics, but most of the distraction comes from inside rather than outside. Again, remember that every time I mentioned talking, I meant talking in my head. I never realized people without ADHD didn’t do this until I took medication 2 weeks ago and experienced what it feels like to not talk and just do things for the first time. I can still talk to myself when I need to, but it feels like a muscle I can flex rather than my heart muscles that are always there. Also it’s much closer to the volume of the world around me instead of a megaphone. Even though I have ADHD, because I specifically choose not to watch UA-cam shorts or even have TikTok or Instagram on my phone, I have a much better attention span than a lot of my friends, especially when I’m on medication. I personally think that ADHD should be called something other than Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, because it was named this way by scientists who could only the outside results of people with it, and it leads many people to believe that it’s the same thing as a short attention span, when in my experience they are two completely separate things. Great video though.
Almost every video I’ve watched on people who have adhd, they all mentioned how the attention defecit part should be renamed. It causes confusion for other people who think it’s just attention span, but also it’s just not accurate either. I do Like how ADHD sounds tho, I like saying it really fast it rolls off the tongue nice
This is the first time I've heard this be mentioned as a symptom of ADHD. And it's true! I just can't shut up in my head!
That's a really good description. I used to get distracted in elementary school by daydreaming, playing pretend in my head, pretending to write fanmail to my favourite musicians if I ever got the chance to meet them, imagining potential jobs or games, or other things to do... I also used to get in trouble for singing in class, but I always have a song stuck in my head. If I don't, that means I'm really anxious and that's a bad sign.
I tried meds, and I was like, wow I can sit without feeling like I need to be doing 4 things at once, but they only lasted a few months before side effects and after 2 years of trying 3 different types, all with issues, I just gave up and changed my schedule. At this point in time, I make my own schedule as long as I get my work done, but I'm hoping to apply for something more regular in the fall after my summer work ends, and I'm worried about keeping on track.
In group work (I did a branch of computer science that deals with business solutions, IT, and websites), I was usually the brainstormer, I'd come up with tons of ideas, draw them up, and then the rest of the team would keep me focused and we'd chose what direction to go, and share the work to be accountable. But not all jobs work like that, so it tends to be a matter of having a good team, and finding a place where your differences are valued.
dude I feel so good reading this . other people also suffer this
Agree
As someone with actually crippling ADHD (and diagnosed way before TikTok existed lmfao), the family guy slime videos or subway surfer videos or whatever whatever are absolutely not it for me, but I think it's interesting the way people who don't have ADHD but have developed this weird relationship with attention spans react much differently to them, need them/want them, etc. I hate them!
Obviously other ADHDers do like them but I think it's interesting that several ADHD people I know in my actual life also don't react to these videos like people who've just developed short attention spans.
Exactly, of course it's different for every person. But for me it's much less seeking constant visual stimulation in any form and more meandering thoughts and very abrupt breaks in attention, so having multiple things on screen doesn't really change anything. I fidget a lot, so I'm guessing this sort of thing can act as a sort of mental/visual fidget for some people.
As someone who also has diagnosed ADHD, I feel the same way as you. I had to learn to accept a long time ago that, even if my brain will want to try, multi-tasking is not something that is possible for me if I need to do something that requires true focus. Like, I can listen to a podcast while I fold laundry, but there's no way I could watch a UA-cam video while writing an essay or actually follow the plot of a movie while scrolling through Twitter. In this way, having secondary stimuli would just be an obstacle to achieving the real focus that can be challenging to achieve in the first place. As you said, it manifests differently for different people, though.
Same. Known I've had ADHD since 5ever and all the things recently that have been shortening people's attention spans never worked for me. They just don't have enough substance for me to interact with for very long. I think moreso, I'll put on a six hour video essay, and pause if every half an hour to leave my room and do something else.
i don't like them, i just get sucked into them and lose track of everything else
needless to say, i don't go on tiktok.
What’s interesting to me is how people (presumably) without ADHD will throw anything under the bus as a cause for ADHD. Like, I hate those “X thing over Y thing” videos. I’m diagnosed with ADHD. I take meds for the damn thing.
Yet everybody who doesn’t know the first thing about it all have something to say about how that kind of content is for sure definitely causing ADHD 🙄
Mindfulness was one of the best and most relevant tips I found from DBT. If you are eating, then eat. My therapist explained today that even just drinking your coffee and only doing that, thinking "hmm this is really good" is mindfulness. Glad to hear other people raising awareness to this type of topic, I'm gonna try and read today.
I like this
This is on point. It’s frustrating how the algorithm has given way to such narrow interests.
As someone who was diagnosed with ADD in middle school, slowly feeling my mind become less and less able to focus over the years is terrifying. Sometimes, after being stuck in the “conveyor”, as you so aptly put it, hours later I can almost FEEL my brain rotting. I wish shortform content would go away but chances are it’ll just get worse. Stay strong everyone, may we make it through this nightmare together
I thought I was immune to this up until my late twenties. Yes, I'd spend a lot of time on social media, but I also justified that I'm not that addicted/affected because I also read and take walks and other ''offline'' stuff. But recently I noticed that my attention span, despite my good habits, has decreased so much that it's affecting my creative hobbies.
Like, for the past year I can't sit at my desk and write two or three chapters of my novel like I used to. I can barely write one page a month at this point because I get too restless and need a quick rush of dopamine or a more interesting visual stimulant than a blank page.
I think I'll need a big detox this summer.
You might just have ADHD, my person. A symptom is dopamine deficiency.
@@DeathnoteBB the whole point is that they've noticed a decrease in attention span, that they didn't have before. Short contents as said is in this video rewires your brain to be used to the overstimulation, so dopamine deficiency arrives. It's not a deficiency from within but an environmentally caused imbalance.
I'm going thru this too 😭 I code/3d model/draw in my spare time but I tend to get bored if I don't have a UA-cam video playing in picture in picture.
There is no scientific evidence to support a “dopamine detox”, nor anything on having too much dopamine. Dopamine actually comes not from doing something, but from IMAGINING that thing.
Anyway, long winded explanation I’m trying to give is maybe don’t jump straight into a detox. Just try to catch yourself doing things and maybe speak to a professional if you legitimately feel your attention span has just gone.
You can't "detox" from your own brain.
I kind of agree, the really big and flashy subtitles are annoying, but please please please understand that they are an accessibility aid!! I have issues with understanding what people are saying, and subtitles help so much. If I’m watching a movie with no subtitles I have to ask what’s going on every time something important happens. I was really relieved when you said you were going to keep the subtitles on lol. It’s funny you mention guard rails because that’s what subtitles are for me.
(Side note, as someone with adhd, doing two things at once absolutely helps (me specifically) I usually have two(2) different homework tabs (usually from different classes) that I switch between. It helps keep me focused ironically. When I’m stuck on one I switch to the other and by the time I get stuck on that one I’ve usually figured out how to get un-stuck. And yes, you were right, while watching this video I was planning animal crossing.)
what’s interesting is that though I have ADHD, a lot of techniques designed to grab my attention don’t work because I’m so easily overstimulated. one reason I always watch your videos is because you’re relatively calm and cozy- I don’t like feeling yelled at. if u were to start implementing more strategies to increase retention time, i’d probably stop watching.
I’m not immune- I’m definitely a two-things at all times kind of person. but in general i seek out long-form content, even on tik tok, and I’ve been growing increasingly frustrated with online content shifting towards short-form. for once in my life i’ve been reading MORE books.
(another tip for reading- if it’s fiction, pick a soundtrack to match it for a more immersive experience!!)
I'm the exact same way!! I sometimes seek out overstimulation because I know I'll ignore it and focus more at the task at hand, it's very paradoxical
@@KuncanDastner I'm also in a weird space with this! Because on one hand I am also a "two things" person, but on the other, if it's two 'new' things it almost immediately becomes TOO overstimulating (like, chores and music yes, but only if I've listened to that music before). I can't watch a movie and scroll twitter, or play a game and listen to a podcast, or whatever; my brain literally just shuts one of those inputs out. Like you said, sometimes I can use it to 'trick' myself into focussing harder. But like Liz said, I also prefer long-form videos over short ones - even when I'm not doing anything else. (I think my brain might actually treat the audio and video as two separate things, but that's another thought for another time.) This is my very long-winded way of saying that I agree with your video, and that I will definitely be sticking around for more; they're quietly comfortable in a way that I genuinely wish was more common on this platform (and on the internet in general).
Same for me. I like watching stream vods that rarely have any interruptions because it’s almost meditative. Also, for the book soundtrack thing: I’m a huge weeb and lots of the light novels I read have anime adaptions with soundtracks to accompany them. Same for when I’m reading manga. Other than that, if it’s a fantasy series the Violet Evergarden soundtrack has a good range of chill to hype to action tracks while still not overly suspenseful
It annoys me how I can't really read anymore and that music tip never came to mind. I'll certainly try that next time. Any idea what to use for textbooks?
@@PinHeadSupliciumwtf textbooks r a doozy, music doesn't really help. i never read them straight up- i go to the chapter summary at the end and write down all the "key points," then go back to the text and skim it for details on those key ideas. same with readings for a college class- read the intro and conclusion, write down the author's key points, then skim the text for how they supported their argument. usually classwork/discussions fill in the gaps if I miss anything lol.
I love the Wii Play soundtrack in the background. It’s one of my favorite video games scores, it’s so calming.
i have adhd and honestly i dont use tiktok at all and i hate shortform content honestly, i love to dive into a good 3 hour long youtube video and enjoy every second of it. i was fully ready to have a staring contest too, we are often scared of silence as it tends to bring out some ppls thoughts, tho for me its moreso, im focusing on every little sound if its too quiet so i need some white noise at least (working in a noisy environment rly helps and i rly dont mind it)
very similar to your experiences, except for the silence, i freaking love hearing nothing but the distant cars, the wind and the songs that constantly play in my mind.
yes, it sometimes happens some not very pleasant thoughts show up, but i think i've been able to harness them.
i have not bothered with tiktok and i completely refuse to touch it, same with instagram, only that i downloaded it in case someone wanted to contact me thru there, but i avoid it, i have no incentive to check what's happening there.
my favorite videos usually are in the ballpark of 15 to 30 minutes long and i commit my complete attention to them.
0:28 I was waiting for the dvd logo to go at the top right and I’m mad it got cut off
okay mutuals we got a 2nd ad sponsor how are those going? gimme your thoughts/feedback
Yay
not a moot but really proud of a casetify sponsorship
congrats big dog get the paper
@@martagavi you're all my mutuals
I have seen this coming 7 years ago. All these years of training myself not to fall victim to the algorithm, keeping my recommendations focused, and avoiding apps like Instagram and Tiktok have finally paid off.
I have ADHD and Dyspraxia. I’ve always functioned better doing two things at once. When I was a kid I would read books in class and I’d still hear the lecture and absorb all the information from both it and the book - better than I could if I did either of those things by themselves. When I need to memorize information for a test I make someone ask me the questions and if I don’t know the response, say it to me and have me repeat it until I can, while I play a video game or otherwise occupy part of my attention.
That’s a neat trick I can do, especially since I grew up being told that it’s impossible for people to truly multitask. It’s like a little superpower. But it has also made me very susceptible to Two Things Disease. I first became aware that I had this problem back in 2019 and proceeded to do nothing about it. I still haven’t really fixed it because I don’t want to experience the discomfort. It’s making it hard to work now though, since I’m not supposed to have my phone out at work but during down moments when nothing is happening it’s really hard to just sit and have nothing to engage with. I’m glad I saw this video because it gave me a practical starting point to figuring out how to teach my brain to be okay with quiet moments.
honestly i think a piece of nuance that is missing from this vid is that many neurodivergent ppl actually function better w two things disease. like lots of ppl w adhd doodle while class and it helps them stay focused on the class, bc the lack of dopamine causes a need for increased stimulation. its why many neurodivergent ppl stim! but i also think that big tech is taking advantage of this and shortening our attention spans more than they need to be
@@valentinecore yeah, absolutely. When I was in school I faced a lot of issues with teachers refusing to let me do what would help me focus and preform best because they didn’t believe me. It was frustrating since in elementary school my teachers embraced my unique way of engaging with classes and praised me for it, and then I got to middle and high school and was berated and punished for the same thing. For the life of me I couldn’t get them to understand that someone could function differently than they did, despite being diagnosed with both those things I mentioned at age 7.
I think that the knowledge of myself I had that doing two things at once is good for me also allowed me to sink deeper into the screen problem. I told myself I was doing what was good for me but it was really something insidious that someone out there seeks to profit over and it’s definitely gotten to a point where I realize it isn’t okay. Like, I can’t be comfortable even just playing a video game. I have to listen to someone talking at the same time. It causes me discomfort if I don’t have at least two forms of stimulation coming from technology at the same time. I think what I need is to get back to my old kinds of two things from childhood.
Heck I remember being more successful at Mario while singing along to the radio but even going back to music instead of UA-camrs would be a step in the right direction for me.
@@valentinecore okay I haven't actually watched the video yet because I was worried he'd have left out neurodivergent people like SO MANY others do when talking about attention spans and it's honestly SO ANNOYING. I hate blanket recommendations for things that simply don't work the same when you are ND, it's so ignorant.
@@melbapeach162 He doesn't talk about it, but read the disclaimer at 10 Minutes in the video. This video isn't about neurodivergent people and how they need different stimulation, but about people who are negatively effected by the way our media has evolved.
@@gluckszwerg46 at one point in the video he says "I caught a bad case of ADHD" 🥲
I've been using a slightly different method that lets me use my 2 thing syndrome to my advantage. I'll find a good, long form video essay/movie/etc, and instead of just scrolling through my phone, I start working of a craft project. This helps me avoid using my phone, and by focusing on longer projects, I've been improving my attention span without really thinking about it.
I watched this video while practicing bookbinding lol
It's incredibly how often I caught myself having the urge to scroll down to the comments or open anotehr tab.
Since I didn't do it, my body told me to get up and walk around or to clean my glasses, to do something while I watch this!
Thing is, not only are our attention spans being attacked for the sake of profit but the thought of doing multiple things at once is also more and more ingrained within us.
Gotta be more effecient, productive, careful with your limited time and so on. It's maddening.
I realised that my attention span was reducing so I started reading books, that too without any music in a quiet environment. It was nerve racking at first but now I enjoy books and spend 2-3 hours at a stretch reading. There’s no way you can even expect short form content from a 500 page book, so reading really helped me to get back my attention span. I rarely watch Instagram Reels or UA-cam Shorts these days but whenever I do, I’m left with a sickening feeling of exhaustion of my entire dopamine supply. The real world is pretty fun tbh. I talk with people for hours, read books, etc. and now it’s all cool.
KUNC NATION !! I think another thing that plays a role in wanting to watch or do multiple things at once is that looming feeling of not getting alot of stuff done in a timely manner or the idea that being able to multitask is more productive . my attention span works in the way that i want to be able to draw and watch this video at the same time, but what ended up happening was me watching the video and not drawing at all LOL . and having too many things going on at once on screen still overstimulates me but the rabbit hole is tempting . thanks so much for the tips to help with building attention spans too !!
Oh I totally agree - whenever I'm doing one thing my brain will start listing chores I haven't done as if it's a manager catching me on break
Deleting tiktok and Instagram has been the best thing for my attention span. Now I will happily sit through a 2 hour video essay on UA-cam whereas the very IDEA of that was difficult to think about beforehand
I was so ready for the silent stare-down at the end haha! Great video! I used to read so much when I was younger, and I have finally decided my lack of reading now comes from having my dang phone by me all the time. It takes conscious effort, but i can finally read again for at least an hour. Gotta keep at it!
Yes, practicing reading is so helpful!
I read far more on my phone these days than books, but I feel like I read more since getting a smart phone. That might have something to do with being on a forum from the 90s and reading a pile of threads.
I've never downloaded tiktok for this reason, but with Instagram reels and UA-cam shorts it's almost unavoidable. I have deleted both of these apps and I'm only using them on a desktop now, to avoid all that short garbage content.
I have diagnosed ADHD, but I somewhat paradoxically have one of the longest attention spans in my family. I've had to deal with this shit my whole life and I grew up before the Internet could get its hooks into me as basically a baby. So I figured out some of this stuff some time ago. In general, I try to stay away from short content, because while it's distracting for most people, I know that shit would just fuck my life up. I don't have any social media except UA-cam and messaging apps to stay in touch with people. I turn my phone off when I watch movies and I have it on silent most of the time. I even found out recently I can binge read for way longer than most people 4h+ (I still get distracted a lot and reread lots of pages, but it doesn't stop me reading altogether) I still probably watch too much UA-cam, but at least it's mostly I stuff I don't regret spending time on (As a note: I'm more H than AD, but in general ADHD is not just about attention span). My point is that if you're struggling with this and would like to change it, it might still be possible even if you do have ADHD. Just find what works for you and actively try to work on it.
I think one thing that people don't necessarily talk about with ADHD is that it's not just necessarily having a short attention span, but having problems regulating your attention in general. This is why some people with ADHD can become hyper-focused and spend several hours focusing on one thing. Sometimes I can get super into playing a game and my mind will want to ignore doing anything else--even taking care of myself.
@@madisonemily4083 to me it doesn't feel like a deficit of attention.
The attention is strong and there's a lot of it. It's just not going where people think it should
It’s not paradoxical at all, hyperfocus is a major trait for ADHD
I 100% agree with the avoiding shortform content, I refused from the get go to get Tiktok because of how my ADHD brain might latch onto it.
@@alrighttumbleweed4782 that's the REAL ADHD struggle right there.. I think so many people these days think they have ADHD because they have short attention spans but then they don't have any of other symptoms (like hyper fixation, RSD, executive dysfunction, emotional dysregulation)
ADHD isn't just "oh look, squirrel! 🐿️"
I am SO glad that I haven't been the only one silently fuming about this attention span bullshit. I have ADHD, and personally I just don't want to encourage my own problems. I want to keep my mind sharp, I want to engage with interesting long form media, but my own and my friends attention spans are literally broken. I know it is, my boyfriend always says no to watching videos that are super long or movies with me. My friends don't want to sit and listen to music with me, despite talking about how nice it is to do exactly that, listen together, because they "have to be doing something else." I'm so sick of an interesting video adding those videos on the side, because it DISTRACTS ME, IT WORKS! I hate it so much, I feel like a robot, the internet is so fucking hostile to exist on now, I've weaned off of it so much, I only use Discord to talk to about 6 people max, I rarely touch TikTok, and I deleted my Twitter, the internet is rotting and it makes me so sad, it was so cool when I was just a kid, and now it's a sewer. I wish I was allowed to feed my broken attention span on my own, I shouldn't be forced to over stimulate, I want to choose to watch 2 things. I block every single reddit story TikTok I see because they're always so sensationalist, fake, or made to make you mad...
I've found that picking up a craft/hobby that doesn't involve screens helps a lot, like instead of being on my phone while watching a movie, I'll work on an embroidery project. I feel more productive while still getting my overstimulation lol
I've been looking for such a hobby!! It's tricky because my "job" is online so hopefully we both come up with some good ideas
Hey man, I just stumbled upon your video… on my for you page… which I watched the entirety of from the thumbnail preview… with several tabs open on my laptop… none of which are the homework I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t have ADHD but I have been really struggling with screen addiction lately and I just want to say thank you for not only validating that experience and also providing solutions. I’ve been trying to just get up and do ten jumping jacks whenever I open any social media just to snap my mind off of it but that’s rarely helped as much as I hoped it would. I think the trouble with making my environment boring is that almost everything I need to do and almost every distraction is all on one device, and it’s crazy hard to stay on task when it’s all right there. In any case thank you for providing solutions and illuminating all of the manipulation tactics happening here
The genius to put the cat moment right at the average retention time, well played.
Overall great video, makes me want to make more efforts to regain control over my attention! Starting from this video, that I (proudly) watched without my phone in hand. Small step, but you dealt quite the inspiring content today, and I hope to carry on in these tracks.
10:40 is such a hilarious gag. I genuinely was ready to focus with no distractions for 1 minute and get lost in your eyes. Jokes like that are why you are top-notch!!!
I'd like to recommend Cal Newport's book "Digital Minimalism". He addresses all these concerns in a friendly, non-alarmist way and offers a practical solution. Re-learning how to be bored and not rely on digital distractions for comfort has changed my life in so many ways. Yeah, it's probably very ironic that he wrote a whole book about how to help our short attention spans.
I'm glad someone is speaking about this. I actually repulse to this idea and it has been SCARING me recently, I hate this whole idea of over-stimulation and corporations using scientific tactics to distract us, and put us in a loophole for money-making greed. Really sinister stuff but I'm really glad you've talked about this.
Gotta say, locking your phone up really does help with increasing attention span. I recently started working retail and during my work hours I have to keep my phone locked up in my locker to kill the temptation to check it while on the floor. I wear a basic digital watch to keep time and the lock makes getting my phone a hassle, so I end up having no temptation to check it. Plus talking with my coworkers and vibing to the radio keeps me stimulated in a much more healthy way :>
So yeah, I might start using these methods in my own home when I need to focus on other things. Because I'm so sick of wanting to say, watch a movie, but constantly getting distracted by picking up my phone
this discussion has never made me happier that i queue up all of the videos of people i watch in a big list. i always, always watch videos all the way to the end because it's the best way to get to the next video. unless a video is actively upsetting me or giving me anxiety, i never skip. its nice to know that im doing something useful for the creators i love.
Good video. I've had ADHD symptoms since kindergarten, but didn't get diagnosed until adulthood because my mom didn't really believe in "alphabet diagnoses". I've practiced increasing my attention span for years now, and I find that I actually have a better attention span than some non-ADHD'ers I know now. It's absurd what short-form content has done to people.
I've only noticed that I have fallen into this recently myself and my attention span has become shot. I think in many ways, it started as a coping mechanism for my stress and because I didn't want to hear my thoughts. It's much easier to drown out my thoughts when I'm inundated with so much information. I think I have a long ways to go to repair my attention span and that is something that I don't need to work on and I hope that your tips will help!
Something that has helped me work on rebuilding my attention span, is setting aside time where I don't have my phone. For me this is an hour before bed and I'm trying to do it half an hour in the morning. In this time I tend to read or journal or something else but it's really hard.
Not bringing along my headphones to places also helps me. It's much harder for me to engage with audio content without headphones especially, in public.
I have ADHD (diagnosed) too, and I noticed how much my attention span suffered from the clock app and how overstimulating it was to me. I stopped opening it nearly a year go and I don’t miss it, highly recommend tbh.
I also noticed that I have to make an effort at keeping my “attention stamina” I had managed to build up, but at the same time I also learned (once I got diagnosed which lead me to inform myself about my brain) that some of the “2 things disease” was actually needed for me to make things work. I found knitting & colouring very beneficial for keeping the attention for video essays/interesting podcasts/audiobooks. But I also keep trying to only do one thing at a time to not lose the ability.
Recently I’ve been experimenting with focus music mixes for when I have to sit down at my laptop and be productive there. It took me a bit to find ones that weren’t too attention grabbing & that I liked enough. Overall I’m really trying to figure out the balance I need, but my attention span has improved again. ❤
i thought you mean the actual clock app and was wondering how wrong were you using it to harm your attention that much
let's call it Musically, if feels demeaning idk
This is the single best way to implement an ad/sponsor that I have ever witnessed in the history of anything and everything (as in, to get people to watch it). Well played.
I actually hate this kind of overstimulation 😭 see there's the good and the bad. the good kind lets me focus and tend to my sensory needs and is also under my control. the bad kind puts me on edge and makes me angry and makes me not able to focus on Anything. I need my focus spread across several things to focus on anything, but I also have awful sensory issues yk
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to limit the amount of time spent on IG reels/YT shorts and now this video was in my recommended page. Thanks Duncan!
My ADHD is pretty gnarly, so I've never used social media other than UA-cam and a bit of Tumblr. I have successfully trained myself away from the dreaded clock app, but UA-cam shorts have their claws in me. In my defense, I mostly like little jokes or fun science facts, but still. It's really hard to tell when noises, movement, and bright colors are visual/audio stims or symptoms of a waning attention span. I'm gonna try to get on that.
Keeping a limit of just youtube and tumblr is already such a good step - and youtube shorts can be fun in moderation, sometimes I set a timer on my phone for 15mins that tells me to get off the app, maybe that could work for you too!
@@KuncanDastner I'll try that, thanks!
In avoiding instagram and youtube shorts (never even thought about getting tiktok), I've found the beauty and bliss of letting my mind wander like when I was a kid. Reading books before bed helps with sleep too. And it feels nice visiting the library every few weeks for a new bedside book. Cooking is nice with a long youtube video playing in the background, or a friend on the phone.
duncan being a passenger princess in the aftershow as always is killing me, also hi grace! hope yall can afford your trader joes and relish in decadence
Seeing my own name caught me off guard
"passenger princess"... sadly not the first time I've been described with this term
I am coincidentally reading G.K. Chesterton's book on America, and his notes on Broadway. With the glittering lights and advertisements even back then. He said something like "How wonderous would this appear to one who can't read?" Because if you don't know what you are seeing, it is a kaleidoscope of glittering colorful beauty. But if you can read, you can see that the beauty is wasted on "Buy Seventh Heaven Cigars".
Even back in the early 20th century, Chesterton could see it. And now we're in an absolute saturation of advertisement.
Getting a hobby that doesn't depend on screentime also helps a whole lot, esp for us NDS out there. My hobby is shiny rock hunting. I can hunt for shiny rocks or crystals I like in the dirt for hours, then spend a good 20 min scrubbing them nicely, then finally seeing the shiny ness in the light. And I can do all of this without staring at a screen or using my phone. Minus for a flashlight lol. Just finding things you can easily do really helps. I literally just do my rock hunting outside my tiny house and I find so many! And it's so easy to just go out, look around for a few, clean real quick.
I just want to say that was the most ingenious ad read I’ve ever seen, prefacing it by saying it’s an example of your point so that people would actually watch the ad instead of skipping
I'd never even thought of the fact that there might be an increase in ADHD diagnoses in the United States due to the increased shortform content that we're constantly being shown. I was just talking to one of my friends about how I think increased ADHD diagnosis has been happening because of TikTok in some way. I think a lot of older AFAB people (myself included until a few years ago) never got diagnosed when they were younger because teachers/parents don't tend to notice it, probably for a multitude of reasons. A lot of people are recognizing themselves in TikToks and going to doctors to get diagnosed. The shortform content issue is probably a big contributor to that in a lot of ways, and I think there is likely a lot of misdiagnosis, too, because of how closely the effects of shortform content mimics ADHD. Either way, it's making it harder to get my meds because of shortages.
Also tell your girlfriend that she got me to make a Patreon to subscribe to yours. I'd been meaning to do it for awhile anyway for a few of the creators I watch, but she made me laugh so I finally did it.
It is HARD to get an ADHD diagnosis. It requires a lot of testing and multiple doctors sometimes. They don’t just hand them out.
Plus ADHD isn’t JUST a short attention span, there are many other factors to put into that diagnosis.
And meds are in short supply because people abuse them, not because the legitimate people are using them.
@@FaeAevalagreed, I went through hours of testing with my doctor to get my diagnosis, and I have it in my family history which also helped me realize that I’m not faking it. Also just hindsight. There were a lot of issues I had I put off due to laziness (hygiene struggles to the point of bullying, excellent test scores but poor grades due to missing homework, teachers calling me out in class for being sucked into a book rather than their lesson, etc etc) since I wasn’t the stereotype of adhd like my sister who was Dx as a kid is, behaved well, and did really well in school generally I slipped through the cracks.
Med shortages are happening because the federal government controls the caps on how much of a controlled substance can be manufactured each year, and despite the increase of diagnoses they've refused to increase the cap. So don't blame people who survived a pandemic and recognized that their coping strategies/adaptations weren't working in a radically different environment than the one they'd always lived in.
@@mffngrffls I feel you, as someone who also didn't fit the stereotype of ADHD. Just wanted to say that I don't think those things were laziness, but executive dysfunction (the idea of laziness isn't actually a thing, not doing something you "should" do is generally for a reason, not just not wanting to do it, if that makes sense?)
@@FaeAeval Yeah it’s seriously not as easy as everyone online recently seems to think it is.
“Everyone is ADHD now because of low-attention span content!” is a wildy reductive take and incorrect anyway.
Source: I have ADHD, was diagnosed by a therapist, am now on medication for ADHD that helps a lot and caffeine makes me wanna pass out.
Such an unrelated comment but you got me in the feels with the 7pm ACNL soundtrack at 1:50. I heard that piano intro and immediately I was transported to late 2019 (I picked up the game late I own that) during the bushfires (I'm an aussie) where we couldn't go out, all we could do was stay inside and I got so invested into that game, playing that with the constant faint smoke smell in the air. It shouldn't be nostalgic but it strangely is.
never downloading tiktok made me feel left out a few years and deleting instagram felt like cutting people out but those are two of the best decisions I've ever made. I feel... more aware. I see the signs of media addiction in my friends and it's scary. I think more people should watch this video.
i installed “one sec” onto my phone, especially for tiktok. it makes me wait 6 seconds before the app opens and log why i’m opening it so i actually have to think about why i’m watching tiktok.
if i have an hour and i just want to relax with the dopamine slot machine? sure, that’s fine. i have six seconds to take a deep breath. i have to be somewhere in 30 minutes but i just sat down and opened tiktok instead of putting my shoes on? not great.
I’m the kind of neurodiverse person that uses overstimulation to an advantage, especially if it’s overstimulation I can control. I can’t handle silence. I really want to get back into reading, and I read a good 60 pages of a new book while waiting in a lobby for an hour, but I struggle with reading at home or when I have literally anything else to do. I don’t have a solution quite yet, but the finger thing might help! Putting more of my body to work and remembering to move my finger would probably help me stay actively focused. So thank you!
Oh silence sucks, I get you there. You can also use a piece of paper to slide down the page as well to take it sentence by sentence, I hope that can work out for you!
@@KuncanDastner I actually ended up finishing the book I mentioned, a mix of using my finger to track the page and putting on a ‘read with me’ UA-cam video to mirror really helped :))
I deleted TikTok a while ago for unrelated reasons, but it’s helped me realize how bad it was for me. I used to not be able to finish a 10 minute video but now I can sit down for half an hour+ watching a video about Minecraft. If you want to help fix your attention span I would recommend doing the same.
"I'm gonna stare at you for a minute and you can't look away." Joke's on you, I already put the video on 1.5x speed
tuning into this over dinner next to a wall to wall display of ipads playing family guy clips
Too true. I'm still in this, even though I've made huge improvements through a number of ways. I used to constantly have my mind racing, making references, forming opinions on every thing there is, talking to myself. I gave away my smartphone, replaced it with a Nokia 1208, I stopped watching UA-cam Shorts and started avoiding that crappy, undignified modernity, like what you described exists in many videos these days, and most difficult of all, I learned to let my shoulders down and relax. Most things don't really matter, at least not to me, or to you. Modern life is an endless array of choices, so you should only choose the stuff that makes you feel happy. Not stimulated, but happy. Play an instrument, sing a song, lift weights (Almost at the 1000 lb powerlifting total! 💪), ride a bike, practice a sport, read a book, write something, whether it be music, poetry, or a manuscript! You don't need to and can't know or see everything. Actually doing meaningful things is humbling. It will probably make you realise just how difficult these things you have trivialised are. I still keep watching UA-cam videos, and I know it makes me unhappy, but I've been doing this since I was 11. That's more than half my life ago now. Turning 23 this year. At any rate, you aren't responsible for the entire world. You are not accountable to it. Live your life. Not anyone else's! I feel that lifting weights has helped me a lot with my attention span and detoxing from overstimulation. Finding purpose in your real, actual life, in something that in no way involves screens, the internet, or anything of the sort, makes real life a lot more interesting to live. *It's not just that the draw to the internet is strong. The draw to the real world is weak.*
I watched this while folding laundry 😂 precisely why I’m so addicted to UA-cam, I really hate being alone with my own thoughts
This is the first video I’ve ever seen of you, and I really like you already.
1. You’re smart
2. You’re funny
3. You have a cat
4. You love your girlfriend
I don't think two things is always bad. When I watch UA-cam videos, I'm often on a coloring app on my phone because I'm fidgety and like having something to do with my hands. It depends on the video though. I almost always do it with commentary, because it's mostly just talking and I'm able to glance up frequently and catch the necessary visual bits. I sometimes watch D&D stuff, and I sometimes play Celeste when I'm doing that because I don't really have to think about it (I'm a speedrunner, and in this context I would just be running through ILs, not doing any meaningful practice or anything), and those videos are usually quite long and I don't really need to be looking.
I almost never look at my phone when I'm watching movies though. I put it in my pocket and watch the movie. I read off of my phone, but if I notice myself closing the Kindle app to look at something else more than once, it means that I'm not able to focus in that moment and I come back to my book later. I also read when I'm eating, so I'm still doing two things at once. It's fine to split your attention sometimes, it's just important to be mindful of when you're doing it, and not do it all the time.
I love your videos because you are one of the most positive and nuanced commentary channels out there. It's easy to fall into hopelessness when talking about the topics you usually approach, but your videos allways have a hopeful spin to them.
i do wanna say that subtitles aren’t just for attention-seeking clickbaiters, but are genuinely helpful for those who are hard of hearing and/or deaf,, they don’t have to be obnoxious, but putting subtitles in your videos aren’t all bad
i mean, the kind of subtitles you'd normally see in movies or games are 1000% fine imo. It's the per-word subs that are the problem
Or auditory processing problems
It wasn't the split screen. It was the "find the flaw" type question you asked before the ad. Smooth move. I watched the whole damn thing. And judged the fingerprints on your screen even as I have my own. Bravo.
Why is it an issue doing two things at once? I recently got diagnosed with ADHD and I’ve discovered that it’s really helpful to keep me focused on stuff I need to be doing. For example listening to ambient/instrumental music when I’m studying/reading, or having podcasts on while I’m doing chores. Having something else on means I’m way more likely to actually do the things I need to and to stay focused on them
This! I also focus way better on tasks if I'm doing multiple things, like listening to something while doodling or having something to fiddle with in general while talking with somebody
I'd say it's an issue because you're not actually developing primary attention skills. You may even be inhibiting them.
@@sameash3153 Do you know what ADHD means?
@@rookideetrainer1635 yes, I was diagnosed with it in the late 90s, was on medication for it until 2014. It's not a real disorder. There is no ideal attention span innate within the brain. Believing that I was disordered only ever discouraged me from developing primary attention skills, which are not innate but are learned.
What kind of disappoints me about this video is that the author makes such a compelling case that attention spans are tied up inherently to the culture and the media in which we are asked to pay attention. Which is to say that our attention spans are in fact culturally reinforced. He makes the case that more and more people are experiencing attention deficits without having ADD, because the dominant media environment thrives off short attention spans. But then he doesn't question ADD, and that disappoints me. The truth is, if you just backwards engineer the argument he's making into previous media environments, you see our culture's collective attention spans have been decreasing more and more over the decades. "ADD" is just the end result of that. This process has accelerated so much so that now we see ordinary people with attention deficits more severe than what would have been diagnosed as ADD two decades ago, with no history of ADD in childhood.
To give one example of how pretty much no living person alive right now would have survived in previous media environments: consider that presidential debates in the 19th century were over 7 hours long. They are described in news papers as being huge family gatherings where even children and infants attended. No child today would be able to sit through that. Not to mention, church services were regularly 3-4 hours long, and you didn't attend only in the morning but also the evening. Every single person alive today would have ADD by their standards.
@@sameash3153 Except this is something I've struggled with my whole life and learning these tools and exactly how to keep the parts of my brain that are searching for stimulation occupied allows me to focus way better than I ever could before (I'm 38 btw). Also you still haven't explained why it's bad to do two things at once if it does in fact help you focus better.
I've been re-training myself to focus on books by reading them aloud to myself, full dramatic performances. i felt kind of silly for it, but this made me feel a lot better because it really is working to improve my attention span!
as someone who's autistic and had ADHD I've been doing a lot of this kind of mindfulness and it helps so much! specifically rather than aiming to just eliminate bad habits like doom scrolling I'm making the effort to instead recognize when I'm understimulated and do something more productive about it. sure, playing a game on my phone while simultaneously watching a youtube video will keep my brain from yelling at me but it's genuinely more fulfilling to instead take it as a sign and do something more actively engaging. is youtube not enough engagement for me? maybe I'll go play a video game, write while listening to music, or make some art. I find that single activities that are more actively engaging make me so much happier than just stacking on multiple low-effort activities
oddly enough, my ADHD actually makes it impossible for me to do multiple things at once. My focus has to be all or nothing. So if i'm on my phone doing anything while watching TV, i'll miss 90% of the show. I have to pause youtube videos/games to read and answer texts. I can't even study or work with music in the background if it has prominent lyrics (unless they're in a foreign language). And to be honest i'm not sure whether that's a good or a bad thing
That must be why I study well with death metal lol
i was completely prepared to do the staring contest lol. really though, this is a great video, and i find it absolutely hilarious that this is the video i was planning to watch on another monitor as i did my work lol. i like the tip of using your finger when reading, it sounds like good advice!!
*2 things disease*
OHMYGODYES.
I have had no idea what to refer to this as, it’s been like the entire way I’ve counted my own ADHD during those moments where my meds fall short or if I just straight up forgot to take them.
Even if that wasn’t the main point you had hoped people would take from your video, randomly sharing that term alone helps greatly, as now I have a way to explain my weird working habits to people instead of letting them assume I’m just slacking.
Great video man!
the squeak at 5:55 made this whole video worth it
Yeh i really needed this one. i actually noticed how much my attention span shortened when I started to click more on those tiktok like content. it sucks alot because i couldn't watch all the people i liked watching before because my brain just wonders and becomes bored. I can't even draw anymore. i used to have the attention span that could last me for hourssss, but now I can't even last a few minutes without opening my phone
I also have crippling ADHD, and when my brain is needing multiple forms of stimulation, I've found that using fidgets helps a lot and it's better for my brain than just having multiple tabs open. That way I can still keep my eyes on the screen, while giving myself multiple forms of stimulation that my brain needs.
It's wild hearing someone saying exactly what I've been struggling to find the words for these past few months. I've struggled with ADHD and general inattentiveness all my life, and after quarantine I noticed it had gotten to the point where I couldn't do--well anything really. I've been picking up reading lately and it's really helped me focus in, at least for a little while. Will definitely be trying the finger-follow-along trick as my biggest issue seems to be forgetting which line I'm on. Anyhoo, I've rambled on long enough. Lovely video, keep up the great work
I appreciate the distinction between ADHD and two things syndrome.
I have ADHD. Recently diagnosed but looking back, the only reason I wasn't flagged was because my grades were good and I liked most of the subjects. I had all the symptoms.
Its just with the onset of two things syndrome, everything about ADHD has been magnified to an unbearable level. Its genuinely a struggle to do basic things.
I never really faltered in class either other than my anxiety starting to make me become absent more often over the years and my undiagnosed ADHD being a crooks of my trouble focusing because my brain was going a million miles per hour. Teachers often gave reports to me with confusion like “Is a joy to have in class but finds it hard to complete assignments”. Which is something my psychiatrist talked about that many other undiagnosed students had in their report cards.
It was impossible for me to concentrate on things my brain wasn’t interested in like maths and geography, but what I did focus on, I did really well at.
Homework was the bane of it all because my brain would switch off after school and it was hard to get it to switch on again, but also my anxiety was through the roof over the exhaustion of having to do work after school.
I was actually told by a university advisor that the two things idea is better for people with ADHD. Pick two or three subjects, and go back and forth between them if you're struggling to work on one at a time. So for me, that was usually writing a paper, and working on a programming assignment. Or in grade school, do a few math problems, and then work on a geography assignment for a bit before going back to do a few more math problems. But I relate, I wasn't diagnosed until university because my grade school teachers were really good at providing the extra help, being patient with me, and I usually had honours (85% or higher average). But that was due to lots of homework, and teachers willing to give me an extra push when I needed it. I also would get in trouble for singing because I always have a song in my head. I find it helps sometimes.
As someone with ADHD, i find it very funny that every time these clips come up on my FYP on TikTok, my brain is already doing so much that it just completely scrolls past it together. My brain is always distracted with something and UA-cam has been an app which I always use because I need background noise to do things. It’s why I have video essays, deep dives and documentaries all over my reccomended since they’re amazing background noise alongside helping me gain perspectives which I never thought of before.
I just found your channel through this video and I like your content, your cat makes it even more better since I LOVE cats with a huge passion and makes me incredibly happy alongside productive.
C'mon Duncan, I even stopped reading on the other tab to do your stare down only to get nothing in return?
How dare you.
I've been trying to focus on one thing at a time myself and, since then, I feel like the concept of time's taken a whole new meaning.
What worked for me is remove any form of "for you" social media on my phone, specially the ones with TikTok format videos.
Now I only go into UA-cam from my computer and, I'm able to find videos like these and enjoy them a whole load more, one at a time!
I would love my loved ones to start doing this as well, (specially my mum, who can't watch a TV series without doing something else) but I'm not sure how to do it without coming across as a know-it-all.
Thank you for this video, I'm glad to see the issue acknowledged in such a hopeful way. You got yourself a new sub!
(I hope this helps in avoiding your girlfriend's death from starvation.)
10:55 holy shit, 2 things to keep my attention
I don't usually leave comments but that ad was really clever - usually I just skip through them, but you actually gave me an incentive to watch it, which a lot of other UA-camrs don't do.
I can totally relate to this video because I do it so much- for example, I always fall victim to the “short-form content Minecraft parkour”
Or when I’m playing a video game, I usually have something else in the background like a documentary ._.
Also, the sponsorship was PERFECTLY integrated, nice job
oooh a documentary is a good 2nd thing!! That way the educational bits are included
@@KuncanDastner yeah
I’m so glad your kitty’s interjections made it past the video editing. She’s so cute, and such a mood.
Thanks for the video, too!
I forced myself to watch this beyond the 8:47 timestamp, in fullscreen, without looking at my phone. It actually felt good 😊
I like when someone finally talks about this problem. To make you glad (hopefully), i watched it to the end. Fullscreen. Though i've been eating all this time, as usual, basically what 90% of videos are to me