# On length and shorter attention spans



## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

With the rise of technology, in particular the smart phone, attention spans have gotten shorter, and the reaction of the pop music industry has been to consequently shorten songs and make the catchy part be the entire song. 

Now, for classical music lovers, what is your preferred length in which you can fully keep your concentration throughout? Would you like it if compositions had less repetitions and were more compact?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The nice thing about classical music is, if you like your music nonrepititious and compact, someone has done it. Personally, if a piece is inspired, I don't mind the length.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

1996D said:


> With the rise of technology, in particular the smart phone, attention spans have gotten shorter, and the reaction of the pop music industry has been to consequently shorten songs and make the catchy part be the entire song.


That assumes there is a catchy part (usually not).


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## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I think 30 minutes is a good length for a symphony. I do love Bruckner, and it can hold my attention for the full 60 or so, but frequently I listen at night and just have to get to bed. 

Of course, there are many, many classical pieces that clock in at ten minutes and under, e.g. divertimenti, waltzes, overtures. I'd have to believe even the most smartphone addled millennial could sit through Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

MatthewWeflen said:


> I think 30 minutes is a good length for a symphony. I do love Bruckner, and it can hold my attention for the full 60 or so, but frequently I listen at night and just have to get to bed.
> 
> Of course, there are many, many classical pieces that clock in at ten minutes and under, e.g. divertimenti, waltzes, overtures. I'd have to believe even the most smartphone addled millennial could sit through Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.


The whole thing or just the first movement? Because if you're claiming the whole thing I would claim otherwise.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Lots of people will gladly sit through three hours of the latest Marvel superhero movie, so it's not the length that's the issue, I think.

Conversely, people have been making two- to three-minute pop songs for many decades, so that's nothing new.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I don't think I have a preferred length for a piece of classical music. Some very long works can hold my interest throughout.

I have to admit though, the only opera I think I've been able to sit through without my mind wandering at least a little bit is Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, and that's only about an hour long.

Edit: I'm 40 years old, if that matters at all.


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## rice (Mar 23, 2017)

For large works like a concerto I prefer 30-40 min.
A symphony could be 60 min or so.
But I think it's very dependent on the music itself. Some themes are more suited for shorter length and some for longer.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I hate repetitiveness or slow changes, so minimalism and Feldman tends to drive me up the wall. It's also hard for me to focus that much on a Mahler symphony all the way through. Need a certain arc to keep focussed.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

BachIsBest said:


> The whole thing or just the first movement? Because if you're claiming the whole thing I would claim otherwise.


I stopped being able to sit through Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in tenth grade. But that was already a question of having had it played to me too many times


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I'm not sure what is meant by concentration, here, as I don't call what I do when listening to music concentration. I often want my mind to wander when I am listening - or, at least, I expect it to - but not to my phone or a device. Some music and some performances do draw me in (while others don't do so in the same way) but still my mind is not consciously focused on the music so much as being in it. The length of a piece, if I have the time and am in the mood for it, effects me most by limiting my capacity to feel the overall structure. One of the challenges I had with some Mahler symphonies was that it took me a great many hearings to get the whole, with all the many parts, into my head _in one piece_. Operas are much less challenging because the structure of dramatic narratives fits much more easily in the brain. But, I suppose the biggest length challenge for me is with very short works, miniatures etc. These can be over before I have really registered them! I do put this down to my listening style being something other than "concentrating".


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I am pushing 70 years of age, don't own a smart phone, never have, and have never listened through earbuds. I listen to a traditional stereo at home through headphones if the wife is sleeping or otherwise engaged where it would bother her; I prefer to hear music in open air of the living room or car to ear phones. I have kept up with stereo technology, once owned a 5.1 surround sound system, and create my own media often.

I've listened to classical music, collected recordings -- more than 10,000 in my years, learned, played or sung it, and otherwise been immersed in it about 50 years.

I find my listening preference to be in the 15-30 minute range at a time though I can go longer if it is during exercise at home.

This has nothing to do with technology; it is about time available and the number of other things I want to do in a day. I like to read, watch TV, watch a film, spend time on the computer (like now,) exercise at home or elsewhere, ride a bike or swim, walk the dog twice, follow pro sports, attend a local event or sport, and/or do a range of other activities every day that probably last a couple hours at a time. 

Other than during exercise or driving I don't think of listening as a multitasking activity.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I do find as I enter geezerhood that my patience for long-winded music is dwindling. I can still listen to an 80 minute Mahler symphony without any problem - but may take a break in the middle to refill my coffee or booze. I do find that sitting through long operas isn't so easy anymore. In my younger days I could listen to Die Meistersinger - all 5 hours of it - in a single stretch. No more. Now I might break it up over 2 or more days. 

On the shorter side though, I have even less patience today for the slow movements of Bach, Haydn and Mozart. 

So, there is no preferred length - as long as the musical substance can support the timing, and my interest is held, timing doesn't matter. But, as a performer - romantic era symphonies that go over 40 minutes really become taxing. The lips lose strength, your brain loses concentration and you just get tired. Things like Tchaikovsky 4, 5,6, all of Brahms, Beethoven 7, and those Mendelssohn symphonies are just beastly. When I was 30 maybe the stamina was greater, but nowadays - it's getting hard!


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## WildThing (Feb 21, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> Operas are much less challenging because the structure of dramatic narratives fits much more easily in the brain.


Agreed. I can find it difficult to concentrate on a large-scale instrumental work, especially when its my first exposure to the it or if I am having trouble grasping the structure of the piece. I find that enjoyment of most instrumental compositions requires being able to remember where I've been in order to make sense of where I'm going, and when I am unable to do that my mind will often end up wandering.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^^ Yes, that's exactly how I am.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

It depends on the interest of the musical narrative itself, though generally around an hour on the trot is okay. With Opera, probably my favourite genre, I prefer to take it on an Act by Act basis, close following of the libretto being a must. Once I am familiar with the dramatic terrain and musical landscape, I can "do" an entire opera of up to three hours - especially if it is a Baroque (number) opera.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

And what about what you guys enjoy in a piece? Do you more enjoy the feeling it gives you, or do you look at it like a Swiss watch appreciating the craftsmanship? I suppose most people approach music sentimentally, but don't want to be overwhelmed, or that's my observation.

I remember when I was a young boy music either completely overwhelmed me emotionally and made me feel sad, or was just confusing like any 'adult stuff' was at that age. Is that why classical music is unpopular, it's too intellectual?

Do you like feeling awestruck by complexity or see it as a chore?


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## Guest (May 1, 2019)

1996D said:


> attention spans have gotten shorter,


Is that so?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38896790


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## Guest (May 1, 2019)

Originally Posted by *1996D*  
attention spans have gotten shorter,

Oh, and we're not going to hell in a handcart (or handbasket if you prefer) either.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2004/08/theres-no-time-like-the-present/


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> Originally Posted by *1996D*
> attention spans have gotten shorter,
> 
> Oh, and we're not going to hell in a handcart (or handbasket if you prefer) either.
> ...


Forget Michael Hanlon's 15-year-old paean to the present state of nirvana the world finds itself in; the real Doctor Pangloss of our time was the late economist Julian Simon. Simon preached an optimism that makes Hanlon's seem like a funeral dirge. Simon Says (or said) that, in an era of metastatic global population growth, there was literally nothing to worry about, as Earth's carrying capacity for human beings was limitless (I am not kidding). I tried telling that to the dwindling number of species in their dwindling habitats, as global temperatures increased, coral reefs died, and ocean chemistry became altered, but they did not share my or Hanlon's or Simon's enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the waves of migrants fleeing brutality and starvation continue to beat against the shores of the self-satisfied and contented.....


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

If a work is lengthy but full of well executed ideas, I’ll sit through it. Often, with pop songs—I hear all I need to hear in the first 15 seconds. Then, the song merely repeats itself.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

From my own experience, and from a notion about practical psychology, if a composer can sufficiently stuff cogent, engrossing material into a shorter, rather than a longer, piece, then that piece will stick with me as a superior musical experience. There are exceptions where, due to the inherent gifts of the composer and the receptivity of the listener (me, in this case) to those gifts, then a longer piece is justified. This is often best heard in concertos--many of my favorites are comparatively short: 18-20 minutes or thereabouts--Bach Keyboard Concerto No.1, the Ravel Concertos, Shostakovich PC No.2, Prokofiev PC No.1. Yet, by contrast, the two Brahms PCs are also just as long as they need to be. In fact, most every concerto I like is as long as it needs to be. Symphonies are more likely to strike me as being overly long for the musically satisfying content they deliver--hence my dislike of those "vast, interminable, portentous, gaseous late 19th-early 20th-century symphonies" I occasionally complain about. Even Beethoven suffers from _longueurs_, especially in the sainted ninth. Hence Mozart's gift, and also Prokofiev's. Perhaps we each have a sense of how long a musical piece "should" be, and the pieces we like and appreciate best are those that are just as long as they should be.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> Even Beethoven suffers from _longueurs_, especially in the sainted ninth.


Beethoven's Ninth, despite its length, has always struck me as very _concise_ because I find it consistently interesting. There's not a moment in it that I feel is wasted, or doesn't have a specific purpose. So I listen to it, and somehow 80 minutes or whatever has gone by pretty quickly.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Yep, ruined by modern technology; all I can listen to these days is very short and hasty works.


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## Guest (May 2, 2019)

Strange Magic said:


> Forget Michael Hanlon's *15-year-old paean *to the present state of nirvana the world finds itself in; the real Doctor Pangloss of our time was the late economist Julian Simon. Simon preached an optimism that makes Hanlon's seem like a funeral dirge. Simon Says (or said) that, in an era of metastatic global population growth, there was literally nothing to worry about, as Earth's carrying capacity for human beings was limitless (I am not kidding). I tried telling that to the dwindling number of species in their dwindling habitats, as global temperatures increased, coral reefs died, and ocean chemistry became altered, but they did not share my or Hanlon's or Simon's enthusiasm. Meanwhile, the waves of migrants fleeing brutality and starvation continue to beat against the shores of the self-satisfied and contented.....


For those who think cultural standards were set in classical times and haven't been improved upon since, 15 years was yesterday.

My point was that attention spans are not getting shorter - or at least, there's no evidence that this is so - and that culturally, we're not going to hell...etc. A brief internet search brings up a number of articles countering the idea peddled by traditionalists that only the past is worth living in. For them, the only thing that could be improved upon would be to discover that Bach was actually an Ancient Greek.

I have no idea who Hanlon was - though unluckily for him, he died at 51, so will be unable to enjoy the impending environmental disaster. In the meantime, Yuval Noah Harari makes some of the same points about society's improvements in his Sapiens - though I don't recall his commenting on the vacuity of pop music. I'm sure he felt that it wasn't a target worth wasting words on.



1996D said:


> what is your preferred length in which you can fully keep your concentration throughout?


I'm not sure I've got a preferred length. I enjoy some of the symphonies of Mahler and Shostakovich (not just the shorter ones). I like Debussy's _Girl With The Flaxen hair _and can just about maintain concentration throughout Fauré's _Dolly Suite 'Berceuse'._ I'm not an opera lover, so I'm not about to sit for x hours listening to duelling baritones and sopranos.


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## insomniclassicac (Jan 15, 2018)

I adore great, massive, sprawling works. Like Alkan's _Concerto for Solo Piano, Op. 39_, with its gigantic, 30-minute opening movement. Ditto for Shcherbachov's _Symphony No. 2_, with its equally-long fifth movement, set to poems of Alexander Blok. Or Florent Schmitt's Op. 51 _Piano Quintet_.

I just love being lost in an artwork's world for hours at a time, exploring its titanic structure.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

insomniclassicac said:


> I adore great, massive, sprawling works. Like Alkan's _Concerto for Solo Piano, Op. 39_, with its gigantic, 30-minute opening movement. Ditto for Shcherbachov's _Symphony No. 2_, with its equally-long fifth movement, set to poems of Alexander Blok. Or Florent Schmitt's Op. 51 _Piano Quintet_.
> 
> I just love being lost in an artwork's world for hours at a time, exploring its titanic structure.


I share this sentiments, much more when music is so incredibly well written and its development, tunes, emotions, architecture hold throughout.


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

I think 4'33" is EXACTLY the perfect length.....


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I have not yet dared to experience some of Morton Feldman's several-hours-long pieces. I suspect I might never.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Olias said:


> I think 4'33" is EXACTLY the perfect length.....


I set it to repeat 106 times when I go to bed. That way I get a full eight hours of sleep.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

A long attention span is uh… uh... uh... a bless-... What was the question?? But all seriousness aside, , the worst for a short attention span are the music videos on MTV where any scene that lasts for, say, more than a second is immediately shortened to prevent boredom and lead to attention deficit syndrome. It’s the worst, and I believe that’s where it started as an institution in the media on a grand scale—to cram in as much visual content as possible—and gained a tremendous momentum that the brain cannot always adjust to because the editing is too fast, jerky and sudden. Sometimes it’s hard to find something that you can dwell on because the editors don’t give you a chance. I’ve found this true in how some of the ballets are filmed too: you cannot follow the dancers in the way that you want to.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

As a young man I used to worry about the criticisms that my elders and betters leveled at our cultural methods and habits. Their criticisms seemed to have something that was hard to answer. But they also seemed to be based on misunderstandings and theories rather than a close knowledge of the stuff they were rubbishing. So do people these days have a shorter attention span? I don't know. But even if they do it may not matter in the ways we think it does. Before literacy became a widespread skill people's memories were so much better. This certainly changed the way people did their thinking - so much harder to make links and connections and to find and use analogies without a compendious memory - but did it matter? No. It allowed communication of ideas between communities that had previously been closed to each other and thereby a huge growth in our intellectual ability. We blame the uses we put new technology to for changes in our ways of thinking (our attention span is "damaged") but I wonder if there is not also a harvest to be reaped from all this?


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> Before literacy became a widespread skill people's memories were so much better. This certainly changed the way people did their thinking - so much harder to make links and connections and to find and use analogies without a compendious memory - but did it matter? No. It allowed communication of ideas between communities that had previously been closed to each other and thereby a huge growth in our intellectual ability. We blame the uses we put new technology to for changes in our ways of thinking (our attention span is "damaged") but I wonder if there is not also a harvest to be reaped from all this?


Were people's memories better? I think it's more likely that a majority people just didn't think that extensively beyond requirements and the one or two people with good memories and recall became the village wise man/woman. The slower pace of life with less change and scope for change probably made people more resigned to that situation. Different people did different things with it. Technology has increased the scope for learning, but that doesn't mean everyone is making use of it, just as they didn't make use of the methods already there.

I doubt very much that technology has changed this general situation all that much. There is a façade of a widespread increase in 'knowledge' and recall provided by, on the one hand, the internet and on the the other by the same old transmitted factoids; some of which are completely fabricated or misguided.

There's fairly good evidence that a good deal of media culture (not specifically the technology) has been designed to appeal to the short attention span (something advertising has always been aware of) and has had an effect of making attention spans always expect the short-term, quick hit. That is surely what our contemporary culture is erected upon? Learn French in 24 hours? Mozart for Dummies (and even that book is probably too long to read). 20 instant life hacks.

Time is money and so much information to wade through you can only glance or take the astonishing life decision to devote yourself to a small window of culture, whereupon you may announce your curiously mindful, eccentric approach and write a book about how modern culture is the new evil...in time for the NY Times bestseller list.

Humbug.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> Were people's memories better? I think it's more likely that a majority people just didn't think that extensively beyond requirements and the one or two people with good memories and recall became the village wise man/woman. The slower pace of life with less change and scope for change probably made people more resigned to that situation. Different people did different things with it. Technology has increased the scope for learning, but that doesn't mean everyone is making use of it, just as they didn't make use of the methods already there.
> 
> I doubt very much that technology has changed this general situation all that much. There is a façade of a widespread increase in 'knowledge' and recall provided by, on the one hand, the internet and on the the other by the same old transmitted factoids; some of which are completely fabricated or misguided.
> 
> ...


People used to memorise the Bible and to recite - albeit with improv - epic poems. And if you ever travel in societies where literacy is not common you will find people who can tell you which people own which pieces of land and trace their argument back for 10s of generations. Yes, there can be no doubt that literacy changed the way we use memory and therefore the memory feats we are capable of. I don't think this can be disputed.

For the rest, all I was saying is that if our technology today has changed our abilities to concentrate over time we should look to see what benefits (if any) in our collective ability to think and even to consume intelligently. No humbug, merely speculation and a warning not to sit in the town square bemoaning how things have changed without appreciating that there may be big positives emerging from that change. As someone who mixes a lot with people who are 30-40 years younger than me it often strikes me how much more mature and capable many of them are compared with what I remember of my own generation at that age. I'm not saying this is a result of technology - it could be in spite of it - but I do wonder if there have been cognitive and emotional benefits (for some, anyway) from modern use of modern technology.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

You misunderstand me. I don't think people in the past were any better in general concerning concentration, aside from the fact that a slower pace forced it. The human brain is susceptible to quick fixes. I am not inclined to dismiss youth with a wave of the hand. I mix with young people in few different areas (mostly music and on the odd political march) and dismissals of youth en masse rarely match up to the reality.



Enthusiast said:


> People used to memorise the Bible and to recite - albeit with improv - epic poems. And if you ever travel in societies where literacy is not common you will find people who can tell you which people own which pieces of land and trace their argument back for 10s of generations.


Not _people_, but one out of maybe 100 or 50, who would then recite it to a gathering. The other thing is just functional knowledge. I mean really, when you were kid did you not a potted history in your head concerning who had lived and died and moved away and arrived in the place were you lived? I did. I was also quite literate.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

This is probably a side issue and I am reluctant to take this thread off into less related issues. But a brief response seems needed.



eugeneonagain said:


> You misunderstand me. I don't think people in the past were any better in general concerning concentration, aside from the fact that a slower pace forced it. The human brain is susceptible to quick fixes. I am not inclined to dismiss youth with a wave of the hand. I mix with young people in few different areas (mostly music and on the odd political march) and dismissals of youth en masse rarely match up to the reality.


In all of that I was talking about the assumption behind the OP and all I am saying is *if *there have been changes in people's abilities (and inclinations) to concentrate over long periods there will probably have been big gains as well. I am not sure we are disagreeing on this.



eugeneonagain said:


> Not _people_, but one out of maybe 100 or 50, who would then recite it to a gathering. The other thing is just functional knowledge. I mean really, when you were kid did you not a potted history in your head concerning who had lived and died and moved away and arrived in the place were you lived? I did. I was also quite literate.


Well, the memory feats of preliterate people may be restricted to a few who play the role of remembering for their communities but often their responsibility to do so is often inherited than awarded because of merit. When I was a kid I learned the stuff I was required to learn - and not all of that! - and my capacity to do so was nothing like the capacity one reads about in accounts of schooling in the past. Memory that is used and required remains strong but where it is not required it atrophies ... often "creating cognitive space" for other forms of thinking.


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## Guest (May 3, 2019)

eugeneonagain said:


> There's fairly good evidence that a good deal of media culture (not specifically the technology) has been designed to appeal to the short attention span (something advertising has always been aware of) and has had an effect of making attention spans always expect the short-term, quick hit.


Exactly this. Competition for our attention - especially in a crowded, competitive and, most importantly, costly media environment - has led some to assume that this is now all we can cope with and claim that we've been dumbed down as a consequence.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

We can also ask whether learning dense, complex things/facts/histories from books (paper or electronic) is absorbed and retained better than acquiring knowledge through video/film media. My own impression--unscientific to be sure--is that there is a direct correlation between familiarity with books and text, and what we call literacy. I am fond of histories, especially those written by British authors, and note that most rely upon the reader already having a fairly detailed skeletal outline of the subject prior to opening the book. Hence, the author can then offer additional material on an area without having to reinvent any wheels, as it is assumed that the lay reader has some pre-existing familiarity. You don't get--and retain--such familiarity easily from a video source, whereas you can, I think, from books.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

^ I want to agree because of the solidity of book knowledge, but I'm reluctant to dismiss the excellent educational television that was common when I was a youth. The BBC and the ITV channels ran an amazing array of schools and other educational programming, much of which is firmly embedded in my memory. This was poetry, language, science, pictorial art, music, geography, history...you name it.

I'm of the opinion that attention spans have likely always been relatively short, as a hard-wired fact. Learning to concentrate and persevere is just that: learning! Some people tend to be better at concentrating and paying attention, others less so. I don't believe this has changed much over time.

MacLeod's point here:



> Competition for our attention - especially in a crowded, competitive and, most importantly, costly media environment - has led some *to assume that this is now all we can cope with and claim that we've been dumbed down as a consequence*


Seems to hit the nail on the head. Attention spans are quite short anyway; the culture, at the behest of psychological research (mostly applied to models of the perfect customer), has altered knowledge presentation to bite-size morsels. Also the trend towards simplification of presentation, including the employment of entertainment (mostly comedy these days) in order to be 'inclusive', has changed the nature of both visual and print media. 
In books now the e.g. histories and 'philosophy' are presented in a completely different way to 30-50 years ago. A book about, say, the birth of movable type is no longer delivered as a semi-scholarly history, but as an adventure story with 'characters' and a plot. It engages people, but if not done well it risks falling into trivialisation.

On the whole I think that sort of knowledge presentation suits the pattern of human attention. It's pity that it has edged-out the somewhat less entertaining scholarly works as general reading. I don't know...the bookshelf of the intelligent layman in 1960 had Bertrand Russell's ABC of Relativity; the same bookshelf in 2019 probably has _Relativity for Dummies. _Is the latter any better or worse or the same stuff packaged differently?


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## Kivimees (Feb 16, 2013)

At my age, the ideal length is dictated more by my bladder than my attention span.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

> eugeneonagain: "I want to agree because of the solidity of book knowledge, but I'm reluctant to dismiss the excellent educational television that was common when I was a youth. The BBC and the ITV channels ran an amazing array of schools and other educational programming, much of which is firmly embedded in my memory. This was poetry, language, science, pictorial art, music, geography, history...you name it."


Not my intention to so dismiss, so let me add my support for educational TV materials as gateways to further, deeper involvement with larger issues. Examples here in the USA: Kenneth Clark's _Civilization_ series, and the wonderful series of Ken Burns on an enormous panorama of American history and culture--Burns is a true phenomenon as a mass documentarian and has led many into learning more about the subjects he has covered. The key is to get people to first engage, then to graduate to more detailed sources. As an aside, much of my later interest in "serious" fiction was from childhood exposure via _Classics Illustrated_ comic books. The comics led inexorably to my reading, later, the originals. I also value the Idiots and Dummies sorts of books as gateways to more detailed study.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

As a pointer to that sort of TV I'll add this link, but not post the video because it might be off-topic to the thread and forum area.

It is Australian Rober Hughes's _The Shock of the New_, which is an excellent 8-part documentary from the early 80s about the effects of technology on 'modern' culture.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

My mother always said it doesn't matter what you read as long as you read something. She lived a long life and was mentally sharp to the end.

My brain had no problem with music and numeracy but literacy was more of a challenge. I didn't read adult novels until I was in my late teens, and then I went crazy, maybe too much. In college I was reading a novel a week on the side... this maintained through my professional life... but now I'm weary of novels, look back and think of time wasted reading bad ones... technical books have taken their place... Like novels, I tend to select items that are over my head and force me to work a little...

Fortunately I got this attitude about movies much earlier in life, and haven't wasted as much of my life watching junk on TV. Unlike a lot of people I don't use movies as a reference for real-life events. I'm just not passive enough for the big screen. More literate people will use novels instead. I've decided that real life, at this point in my life, doesn't need such references nor do they add anything useful in most cases. As they say, real life is stranger than fiction. 

But I believe stories, legends, myths, have a lot of value and I can easily imagine, before people had paper or took notes, that memory had to be a more valuable asset than it is today and survival depended upon it more heavily. At some point some tribe elder got a headache from memorizing and started scrawling on the wall. Since then we've developed all types of mnemonic devices and methods. Hard to look back and imagine how it was.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Musically, I think modern music fills a vital niche in the short v long department, with more varieties of music that can function in different time spans. Maybe one doesn't want to sit and listen deeply to Feldman but that's not necessarily what it's intended for. 

Music has more variety of intention than ever and more methods to meet those intentions. If I subject myself to a Mahler symphony, I have to endure a whole hour of music that is designed to manipulate my psychological and physical reactions. That's not really what I always want, and if I listen more passively to music that isn't so demanding, I might last a little longer. So the question is not just longevity but intensity. The less intense the longer I can last, in general, while shorter bursts of intensity - such as a piece by Varese - become highly entertaining for me.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

I don't care whether its 5mins or 2 hours. Good music will hold my attention whatever the length.


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