River Perry is a junior at Central Hardin who attends the Media Arts program at EC3. They like to spend time writing poetry and playing their guitar. When not doing that, you can find them scrolling TikTok or Instagram. Here, they share their perspective on a problem that plagues teens.
Think of this, you’re scrolling on TikTok when all of a sudden, a video of Minecraft parkour starts up while a robotic voice reads off a story that sounds like it was written by ChatGPT. It’s all over the place, even stealing content from Family Guy or American Dad. Why is this “sludge content,” as it’s called everywhere though? It might have to do with our attention spans.
Since we went into quarantine, these videos have blown up tenfold. Especially after it ended and we had nothing better to do than school.
But why?
Well, when we went into quarantine in early 2020, we spent most of our time on our phones.
According to a student survey conducted during the fourth and fifth blocks at EC3’s Media Arts classroom, around 70% of students spent over 8 hours on their phone, some reaching up to 16 or 17. This won’t come as a surprise, but a large percentage of people who did use their phone spent 8 hours of that time on TikTok.
When I asked the students in my EC3 class why they doomscrolled during quarantine, they all had different responses.
“It was really fun to watch…both fun and addicting,” North Hardin Sophomore Grant Bush said.
This comes in contrast with people like me, who had nothing else to do during quarantine.
“I was bored and had no friends,” Junior Sydney Thompson said.
On the other hand, we have people who didn’t spend time on their phones, like North Hardin Sophomore Miles Barry.
“I was playing on my computer or outside, that was it,” Barry said.
People who didn’t spend much time on their phones were more likely to be found outdoors, playing.
In the same class from earlier, 60% of students, myself included, all said that quarantine changed our attention spans. It did take a few tries to pry them from the screens they were plugged into. In my opinion, quarantine did change our attention spans, but it’s up to you to decide.
Did you get to the end of this article without needing gameplay right beside it?
