In a digital age rife with an endless stream of distraction, from email updates to text messages, it’s important that we get our priorities straight. This handy hierarchy created by Information is Beautiful helps ensure that your limited attention span is always focused on the most important detail of the moment.

We may have survived the MTV Generation with our attention spans mostly intact, but it appears the same can’t be said for the age of the Internet, where competing streams of information, multi-tasking and multiple screens are dissecting our withering focus into easily digestible bits. Add in our increased need for immediacy, and an old-fashioned idea like the narrative starts to seem a bit obsolete.
Nowhere is this more evident perhaps, than in the way we consume video online, where the average attention span is three to five minutes, hardly enough time for a classic tale filled with fleshed out characters, [...]

McSweeney’s has posted a course syllabus and overview for a fictional class called “Internet-Age Writing”. Prerequisites include LIT: 223—Early-21st-Century Literature: 140 Characters or Less, ENG: 102—Staring Blankly at Handheld Devices While Others Are Talking and ENG: 301—Advanced Blog and Book Skimming. While it’s a funny commentary on the changing state of modern communications methods, one can’t help but wonder if this kind of class will eventually become a reality. (Or has it already?)
From the introduction:
Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new “Lost Generation” of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones [...]