The average attention span is shrinking as more topics are competing for finite attention spans
Our general attention span is shrinking due to multiple factors. In one study Accelerating dynamics of collective attention | Nature Communications the authors using a simple mathematical model to explain, why the average attention span is shrinking more and more.
Our modeling suggests that the accelerating ups and downs of popular content are driven by increasing production and consumption of content, resulting in a more rapid exhaustion of limited attention resources.
In other words, the ever-present competition for recency and the abundance of information leads to the squeezing of more topics in the same time intervals as the result of limitations of the available collective attention.
The ever-growing amount of content and the competition for novelty leads to a reduction of time dedicated to individual topics, as the amount of attention being available is finite for each person.
This phenomenon is present in everything from Twitter hashtags, comments on Reddit, citations of papers and even tickets for specific movies and queries on Google for individual topics.
Consuming too much information can lead to information overload. So instead of consuming more and more for shorter and shorter periods, We should consume information the same way, we consume and select food.
Carefully selecting media and information and dedicating to it will result in positive effects on both the processing of information as well as personal well-being.