Technological advancements have changed the way of people spending their free time, and along with the prosperity of social media, people cannot live without them and even get obsessed with these postings or video clips. Some argue that the birth of social media leads to the shrinking attention spans. For me, the statement makes sense.
To commence with, social media become popular due to its characteristic of fun and fascination, which gives people instant and short activation and contributes to the habits of receiving knowledge and focusing on items for a very short time. It is obviously apparent that on the social media apps, there are many hilarious posts or videos that last for only few minutes, and if people keep browsing them and a bad habit forms, resulting in shorter attention spans. For instance, children growing up with the accompaniment of digital devices such as iPads and smartphones, which provide applications where people can watch these entertaining videos, are usually more easily distracted and harder to focus than those who do not.
Furthermore, social media involves various information, which may be pushed to and distract users. For example, students using iPads on the class to search information can be disturbed by thousands of notifications from email or reminders, and in this way, students may draw their attention from the class to something else that those distractions lead them to, if they could not stick with the original tasks they are doing at first. If it goes by the same token for a long time, consequences of being distracted finally are manifested: students’ attention spans decrease, and it will be a long road for them to retrieve their previous ability to concentrate on something lastingly.
To recapitulate, social media play an essential in influencing negatively on people’s attention spans, and if no action is taken appropriately and in time, severe consequences, such as no more deep thinking and the like, would occur.