Mass media and the internet have caused people’s attention spans to get shorter. However, the overall effect has been positive: while people are less able to focus on one thing, they more than make up for it with an enhanced ability to sort through lar

Essay topics:

Mass media and the internet have caused people’s attention spans to get shorter. However, the overall effect has been positive: while people are less able to focus on one thing, they more than make up for it with an enhanced ability to sort through large quantities of information and find what’s important.

Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim. In developing and supporting your position, be sure to address the most compelling reasons or examples that could be used to challenge your position.

Internet and mass media has had profound effect over the people of the current generation. With the sudden flux of information all over, it has resulted in drastic changes in the way our systems function. I agree with the view that the shorter attention span has been more or less made up with the enhanced ability to skim through large sets of information.

There is information everywhere now; technology and with improvements in news distrubutiion has lead to a sudden knowledge explosion. From facebook feeds to editorials, same information can be found in different ways. Take for example, a news appearing over an editorial which has laid out coherenly and discussed in detail a recent social change occuring in the society. The same information can be conveniently surmised in a post which sits innocuously on our facebook feeds.

This omnidirectional flow has inadvertenly affected our attention spans. As the information isn't organized, the ability of us to ponder over and delve deep into it has vanished as we are slowly imbibed into a place where we jump from one source to another to form a full body of information.

When given a situation, humans can sustain the change and find their way through hurdles and evolve. The same is now happening with the attention deficit. People are making up for it by developing their skills to sift through large quantities of information which is much needed right now. They can conveniently skim through information and work as efficiently as could be before this change. People have attuned their minds to work in a way which leads to a better output in the current situation.

Complex tasks are broken down into smaller sets. Required information is quickly gathered and the task can be easily worked out without having to follow the traditional approach of thinking deeply into the problem using a traditional set of standards and rules. Periods of longer attention spans are no longer important, but a mere option.

The knowledge explosion also has its fair share of negatives in its bag. Attention span affects the way our brain works. We're no longer able to store the amount of data which was easier for us to hold earlier. We tend to forget trivial things which can often affect relationships, etc. Imagine a situation where you are deeply engrossed in something and forgot your spouse's birthday. It may or may not have severe repurcussions but it is fair to say that such small details are easy to miss with lesser attention spans.

Adding to that, critical reasoning requires a clutter-free mind with a deeper analysis of the topic. It becomes even more difficult now, since people are no longer able to concentrate on the task comfortably.

Overall, even though the advent of internet and mass media has it's fair share of negatives, its benefits far outweigh this. The view that humans are now better equipped to process, comprehend fairly large set of data more or less offsets the decrease in the attention span.

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Average: 8.3 (1 vote)
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Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 93, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: isn't
...our attention spans. As the information isnt organized, the ability of us to ponder ...
^^^^

Discourse Markers used:
['also', 'but', 'if', 'may', 'so', 'for example', 'more or less']

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance in Part of Speech:
Nouns: 0.232472324723 0.240241500013 97% => OK
Verbs: 0.169741697417 0.157235817809 108% => OK
Adjectives: 0.0848708487085 0.0880659088768 96% => OK
Adverbs: 0.0719557195572 0.0497285424764 145% => OK
Pronouns: 0.0479704797048 0.0444667217837 108% => OK
Prepositions: 0.119926199262 0.12292977631 98% => OK
Participles: 0.0590405904059 0.0406280797675 145% => OK
Conjunctions: 2.74641601145 2.79330140395 98% => OK
Infinitives: 0.0332103321033 0.030933414821 107% => OK
Particles: 0.00922509225092 0.0016655270985 554% => Less particles wanted.
Determiners: 0.0885608856089 0.0997080785238 89% => OK
Modal_auxiliary: 0.0166051660517 0.0249443105267 67% => OK
WH_determiners: 0.0166051660517 0.0148568991511 112% => OK

Vocabulary words and sentences:
No of characters: 2998.0 2732.02544248 110% => OK
No of words: 502.0 452.878318584 111% => OK
Chars per words: 5.97211155378 6.0361032391 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.7334296765 4.58838876751 103% => OK
words length more than 5 chars: 0.354581673307 0.366273622748 97% => OK
words length more than 6 chars: 0.247011952191 0.280924506359 88% => OK
words length more than 7 chars: 0.181274900398 0.200843997647 90% => OK
words length more than 8 chars: 0.125498007968 0.132149295362 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.74641601145 2.79330140395 98% => OK
Unique words: 270.0 219.290929204 123% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.537848605578 0.48968727796 110% => OK
Word variations: 65.4146860055 55.4138127331 118% => OK
How many sentences: 27.0 20.6194690265 131% => OK
Sentence length: 18.5925925926 23.380412469 80% => OK
Sentence length SD: 41.9580756201 59.4972553346 71% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.037037037 141.124799967 79% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.5925925926 23.380412469 80% => OK
Discourse Markers: 0.259259259259 0.674092028746 38% => More Discourse Markers wanted.
Paragraphs: 8.0 4.94800884956 162% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.21349557522 19% => OK
Readability: 43.2937878117 51.4728631049 84% => OK
Elegance: 1.42038216561 1.64882698954 86% => OK

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.408531749684 0.391690518653 104% => OK
Sentence sentence coherence: 0.0592867151757 0.123202303941 48% => Sentence sentence coherence is low.
Sentence sentence coherence SD: 0.0422508145725 0.077325440228 55% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence: 0.507852073936 0.547984918172 93% => OK
Sentence paragraph coherence SD: 0.161508179659 0.149214159877 108% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.127420525108 0.161403998019 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0754878711415 0.0892212321368 85% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence: 0.22240029925 0.385218514788 58% => OK
Paragraph paragraph coherence SD: 0.0296542054121 0.0692045440612 43% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.227347478706 0.275328986314 83% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.066481275548 0.0653680567796 102% => OK

Task Achievement:
Sentences with positive sentiment : 10.0 10.4325221239 96% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 5.30420353982 170% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.88274336283 164% => OK
Positive topic words: 6.0 7.22455752212 83% => OK
Negative topic words: 3.0 3.66592920354 82% => OK
Neutral topic words: 3.0 2.70907079646 111% => OK
Total topic words: 12.0 13.5995575221 88% => OK

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Rates: 75.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations to cover all aspects.