In the golden age of attention deficit

We are told - in constant, spasmodic, short '2-min long (to read)', itchy thumb-scrolling news reports - that compulsive watching of short videos and reels erodes attention span, impulse control, and the ability to remember why you walked into the kitchen. Prolonged exposure to fast, emotionally-charged content keeps neural networks in a state of perpetual DEFCON 1: restless, twitchy and primed for anxiety. In short, our brain becomes a hamster on a caffeine drip. But here's the twist: this is the golden age for people with attention spans of a gnat. For the perpetually distracted, instead of being sent to 'concentration' camps, the world now has on offer a gargantuan buffet of dopamine-snacks, each bite-sized and monetisable.

Once, restlessness was frowned upon. Now? You channel that jitter into endless scrolling, and the algorithm pats you on the head with another video of a cat with subtitles. Creators, doomed earlier to obscurity for producing content shorter than a sneeze, are thriving. They monetise our inability to sit still and are profiting from all that neural chaos, including their own. So, yes, reels may corrode concentration. But they also democratise distraction. The hamster is no longer trapped. Now, it's a brand ambassador, mascot for 'move!' And in this 'Next, next, next!' world, attention deficit's a neat business model.