How hard is it to make it though the day without getting a list of some sort? I can’t get away from them. The interwebs are full of them. This morning reminded me of this phenomenon. Steph shared a GREAT music list from I guess I’m Floating. It’s a compilation of Connor’s “best songs of the past decade.” I saw another list on Life in Austin that has been circulating. It’s a collection of Ruminations that just happen to speak to most of us “20-somethings.”
Heck, even here at hbh, we like to make lists. Bjorn just posted a list of his favorite musical youtubes and Peter hits up Wonderful Wednesday with great themed musical lists every week. Back to the topic of lists. I believe they are great. They allow us to take in a ton of information very quickly and efficiently, but it also makes me think about our attention span and how we like to intake information. Don’t get me wrong. I love lists. I like making them and I like crossing things off of them. I also love lists because they remind me of High Fidelity and well, anything that reminds me of High Fidelity is awesome. However, I tend to think that sometimes this “list culture” thing is getting a little crazy. And it’s obviously deeper than a few random lists out there on the internet.
Basically, the internets and TV has drastically reduced our attention span. No longer do people like to read full articles (I’m guilty of this as well). We’d rather get a snippet and move on to the next tidbit of information. It seems that we’ve made a trade-off: quantity of knowledge over depth of knowledge. We’ve become jacks of all trades and masters of none. Really, I guess that’s the point of news and information, but I feel like things have become more and more “snippet-based.” Twitter, for instance, is the ultimate in short attention span. Personally, I’ve grown pretty tired of twitter and check it…maybe once a week. At any rate, I think one of the major “selling-points” is that people can ingest tons of information in small doses. 140 characters and tons of “insight” into the authors life, interests, or news-worthy events…supposedly.
So yea, I want my news to be concise, but I’m personally getting tired of the short attention span style of news. Get me a good news story, and I’ll decide if the full text is worth it in the abstract or the headline. I’m just tired of every news agency in the world speaking of tweeting, facebook, and the twittersphere. I don’t want my news through a trendy social-networking site.
I will always love the list and how easy it is to make and to read, so in honor of this entirely disjointed post and lists around the world, here is a random list for you guys:
- Bjorn made a sweet Youtube playlist of Connor’s songs. Check it out.
- New design and Features coming to the site soon. Keep a look out
- Gorilla vs. Bear made their own songs of the decade too.
- Frozen cheese pizza with your own toppings is WAY cheaper than delivery and just as good.
- There is even a site dedicated to top 10 lists.
That’s all I got, friends. Enjoy your week.
Monday Thoughts: Lists and Short Attentions
How hard is it to make it though the day without getting a list of some sort? I can’t get away from them. The interwebs are full of them. This morning reminded me of this phenomenon. Steph shared a GREAT music list from I guess I’m Floating. It’s a compilation of Connor’s “best songs of the past decade.” I saw another list on Life in Austin that has been circulating. It’s a collection of Ruminations that just happen to speak to most of us “20-somethings.”
Basically, the internets and TV has drastically reduced our attention span. No longer do people like to read full articles (I’m guilty of this as well). We’d rather get a snippet and move on to the next tidbit of information. It seems that we’ve made a trade-off: quantity of knowledge over depth of knowledge. We’ve become jacks of all trades and masters of none. Really, I guess that’s the point of news and information, but I feel like things have become more and more “snippet-based.” Twitter, for instance, is the ultimate in short attention span. Personally, I’ve grown pretty tired of twitter and check it…maybe once a week. At any rate, I think one of the major “selling-points” is that people can ingest tons of information in small doses. 140 characters and tons of “insight” into the authors life, interests, or news-worthy events…supposedly.
So yea, I want my news to be concise, but I’m personally getting tired of the short attention span style of news. Get me a good news story, and I’ll decide if the full text is worth it in the abstract or the headline. I’m just tired of every news agency in the world speaking of tweeting, facebook, and the twittersphere. I don’t want my news through a trendy social-networking site.
I will always love the list and how easy it is to make and to read, so in honor of this entirely disjointed post and lists around the world, here is a random list for you guys:
That’s all I got, friends. Enjoy your week.