Attention span

Reels, Shorts and the rest of life

My mom, 96 years of age, always asks me “So, son, do you have any time to read?” She asks because she knows what a die hard bookworm I used to be, reading and reading as if my life depended on it. At a certain period of time maybe it did.

I used to answer her question in detail, explain to her that in this day and age time is a scarce resource, what with being a parent, working my ass off and dealing with life’s endless demands, but in the last few years the reasons for not reading became more complex and difficult to explain and not very suitable for the ever decreasing scope of my conversations with my elderly mother.

Thanks to Covid lockdowns and anxiety, to the tense and harsh reality in my country and to life’s endless challenges, the last few years saw my patience go out the window. My attention span has disintegrated slowly but surely. I was left with a shrunk and restricted capacity for entertaining elaborate thoughts, for exercising patience and for concentrating. Reading a book?! Please… 10 minute Youtube videos became impossible to watch from beginning to end. To my dismay I was left with the shameful skill of endlessly scrolling through Instagram and Facebook Reels and Youtube Shorts.

I was left to wonder, as I am still wondering now, whether this was the essence of it all, if this was the epitome of the secret of life — passively witnessing other people’s reality (or pretended reality) in a perpetual condensed loop. And of course — what does it say about my own existence, if I’m compelled to fill my personal void with a fast moving charade of edited pieces of alienated lives.

In the last couple of months I have undertaken the for now Sisyphean assignment of reading a book from cover to cover — a pretentious challenge in my current situation, but I’m up to it. The current score is one. One entire book that I’ve managed to slowly and gradually read. Many more are waiting. Maybe I should start making my own Reels and Shorts about this painstaking undertaking and have strangers around the globe watch me in fast forward as I try to regain my ability to focus and just be.