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When looking at Jason Farman’s article “Fidget Spinners” on the calendar, I automatically assumed the topic would be the toy designed to spin on its axis and help individual’s focus. The subtitle and actual article made it clear, I was wrong – and should’ve realized earlier as it is a digital studies class. However, I believe there is an implicit connection between the digital and tangible fidget spinners.
Farman states that the buffering icon is “meant to help us sit back and enjoy our passivity. These icons, try to shift our expectations, modifying our willingness to wait.” This purpose might seem in direct opposition to the infamous tangible fidget spinner. The fidget spinner is a toy that is marketed on the promise of helping people who have trouble focusing due to nervous energy or stress. Its goal is to give them something to do with their hands or a distraction that will ultimately help them concentrate. Unlike the online buffering icon that is characteristic of passivity, the fidget spinner is often used to keep children still when something is going one – like when a teacher is talking. While the purposes of the two fidget spinners are different, the necessary for the tangible toy could have potentially be a result of the internet’s effect on individual’s attention spans.
Individual’s average attention span has been decreasing over time. An article published by the FortuneTech Inc. stated that many scientists believe that “people’s ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information” made easily accessible by the internet. From 53,573 page views, 17% of views lasted less than 4 seconds and only 4% lasted more than ten minutes. Furthermore, scientist found that if a website contains 111 words or fewer, 49% of individuals who click on the page will read all of the content. However, if an article contains approximately 593 words, only 28% of users who access it will read all of the content. Has information overload and modifications to our willingness to wait impacted the human attention span? If so, the two fidget spinners are more related than one may originally think.
Posted from Intro to Digital Studies by Kat