It’s been suggested that middle-aged people have an attention span of 20 minutes, but young people today can concentrate for just 5 minutes – the so-called ‘microwave mentality’.
I’d be inclined to doubt these findings. Ever seen a youngster lose interest in a computer game after just five minutes and decide to do their homework instead? Or switch off the TV five minutes into their favourite programme to do a bit of tidying? Me neither.
But if the microwave mentality of ‘if it can’t be done in five minutes, I won’t bother’ applies only to unpleasant activities, then surely it’s a question of persistence, not attention deficit? Young people clearly can concentrate for much longer periods on congenial activities, particularly in a structured environment such as a game with constant rewards in the form of high scores, extra equipment to play with etc.
We Baby Boomers have much lower expectations of our entertainment – our idea of a hi-tech childhood game was the Pop-o-Matic dice roller in the Frustration board game.
When I was a child, we went on holiday to the Isle of Wight. On one occasion, we met a friendly black dog who allowed us to stroke and pat him for about half an hour. I mentioned this to my sisters 40 years later and they remembered it fondly!
Yep – that was an exciting and memorable incident from our holidays in the 1960s!
This wasn’t because our holidays were all crap, but because we’d learned to appreciate simple pleasures and treasure every scrap of enjoyment that came our way. We can find enjoyable aspects in everyday activities without expecting everything to be brilliant laugh-a-minute fun, and we’ve learned to do a job for the pleasure of seeing it completed without needing the constant reinforcement of rewards.
Or have we merely settled for too little all these years?
Perhaps if we’d demanded more out of life, like today’s young people, we’d have had a better life, with richer experiences and more fun.
Let’s keep our love of simple pleasures, but develop the benefits of the microwave mentality, learn to assess quickly whether things are worth doing and reject activities which are truly a waste of our precious time.