The World Beyond BetterMost > The Culture Tent

In the New Yorker...

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Front-Ranger:
"The Battle for Attention" by Nathan Heller is supposedly about everyone's shrinking attention span due to technology. However, that does not explain why we name three-hour movies as Best Picture and read 10-page articles like Heller's. There are flaws in the argument. But the most interesting part of the article, to me, was the discussion of the Order of the Third Bird. It's a semi-secret society of people who congregate to look at paintings and such. Do any of my friends here belong or know of this group?

Jeff Wrangler:
Their names are so similar that I have a tendency to confuse Peter Hessler and Nathan Heller.

serious crayons:
I actually think one argument in favor of Heller's argument is that I started it last night and I haven't finished it. And ditto for the many other issues of the New Yorker that I have open to some interesting sounding story that I haven't finished. And ditto for the pile of books on my bedside table. And the books and samples I have downloaded to Kindle. And the browser pages open on my phone that have reached 400+. And the tabs I have open on my laptop that I believe have now reached about 8 million. I did watch a three-hour movie and I do hope to get through his article, but being able to keep my attention on any one thing is almost impossible these days.

Front-Ranger:
That's pretty strong evidence, serious!

Front-Ranger:
I devoured the article on the thefts from the British Museum in this week's issue.

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