Kinds of Focus

<i>[Reading articles online is] a shallow kind of learning.</i><p>I couldn't agree more, and often wonder if we've even begun to work out the implications of this.

Wow -- just reading this, I felt my concentration patterns change.<p>This is why, as a Christian, I meditate on <i>something,</i> instead of simply emptying my mind. I spent an hour or so in Psalm 119 this morning, contemplating a few verses, comparing with my life, and shaping my thinking to fit those verses.<p>Here's a thought. What if 50 of us committed to checking /newest at a particular time (say, 5 am), finding 2 articles worth reading, and adding a substantive, reflective comment to start things off?<p>That would gigantically impact Hacker News if we did that. In fact, I'm going to do that right now.

Too long; Didn't Read<p>TL;DR<p>TL<p>We're already seeing conventions popping up to deal with this change in behavior. They just aren't formalized yet.<p>I think this will be another advantage that hypermedia will have over regular old print, you will be able to present your information in "layers". A TL;DR for reference, a summary, and then the full article.<p>Of course, that speaks nothing to the nature of the actual articles. I think theres a point where you've "read enough" and need to go do something else for a while, see what works and what doesn't. I took a two month long hiatus from HN to focus on other stuff recently. It helped. The first n articles at some point become much more helpful than the next nth articles.

&#62;When the number of incoming stimuli is reduced, the mind gradually perceives finer details in the ones that remain. This is famously true of blind people, but you can consciously narrow your attention to the same effect.<p>Or starts hallucinating stuff (ganzfeld effect, Charles Bonnet syndrome)<p>"Open systems communicate and live. Closed systems do not communicate, become non-discerning, uninteresting and die." - Col. John Boyd

I disagree. When I find an article online that exposes a point of view that I haven't seen yet about some matter, I often keep thinking about it the whole day and I even discuss it with other people. That's really a contribution to my mind.<p>Plus, it's only exploring new things that you get interested and feel motivated to learn more about them.

Keeping an open mind is always great. However, being unable to focus on one task and become superior at it is quickly becoming an issue. Today, if I remember correctly, the average attention span is only 8 seconds. Remember: Jack of all trades is the master of none.