Reddit reviews Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?: The Net's Impact on Our Minds and Future (Edge Question Series)
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I don't know the exact author, but I remember a lot of discussions in on this subject in the book: Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think?
If I remember correctly, that there was a point made about how often you see epic television shows with story arcs spanning multiple seasons and how this trend wasn't even thought possible during the initial development of tv. Its the sitcom vs the epic drama. The argument was that if we had truly short attention spans, this wouldn't be possible.
I believe that marathons on television get really high ratings, and back-to-back watching of shows on netflix and and other streaming services is quite common. Binge Viewing: TV's Lost Weekends
I can't seem to find exact ratings, but I remember there being a discussion on it related to why TBS doing so well precisely because of the marathons they show. http://www.tbs.com/schedule/
I'd be curious to find some more concrete statistics.
Most of what I find online about the internet can be explained away with the different modes of interacting with it. Someone who is searching for a particular bit of information is necessarily going to scan and flip more often than someone who found what they were looking for. The statistics may be skewed if they aren't taking that into account.
It may also be that people have always had a short attention span, and that media is just finally getting around to ways to deal with it better hence their abbilty to capture attention for longer periods of time. There is a discussion about pschology behind attention span in this book: 100 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People and she has a presentation up on vimeo: 5 Things Every Presenter Needs To Know About People I can't find any papers on it, although I expect they are kicking around (she has a phd).
I recommend Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think compiled by Edge.org - it's really long but the essays are short (2-3 pages) and some of the insights are interesting to read. In the past month I have cut back on my "boredom browsing" and have had more time to do other things (read, exercise, etc.)