Short Attention Span
Seems like many Americans suffer from a relatively short attention span. I doubt they were born with this weakness, I’m thinking it’s the environment:
- Too many fast food restaurants conditioning us to getting satisfaction quickly.
- Constant interruption from text messages and cell phone calls.
- Long, blaring TV commercials distracting us from the actual program’s story line.
- Continual barrage of emails, especially all the disgusting spam messages, taking our attention away from the work at hand.
- The instant messaging window keeps popping up.
- Continual worry about the latest crisis: mortgage meltdown, global warming, skyrocketing oil prices, unemployment, falling value of the dollar, terrorist activities, and on and on and on.
Now, even if it’s an important matter, many of us can’t maintain focus long enough to accomplish the job… or apply pressure on others so they get the job done.
I suspect politicians count on this. They make statements one day that sound good to that audience and then make contradicting statements the next day to another group of people, hoping that nobody will remember the older utterances and connect the dots. In Congress, they’ll rail loudly about some current problem to get face time in the media… and then do nothing to actually solve the problem, moving on to the next perceived issue.
Instant verbal response leads to no action… and no real gratification. We are chasing our tails most of the time. A lot of activity with little to show for it. Wasted energy.
