"Their scrambled attention spans struck me as a metaphor for the way we get our doses of reality these days"
About this Quote
“Scrambled attention spans” is a cartoonist’s phrase: punchy, slightly contemptuous, and vivid enough to draw in a single panel. Griffith isn’t diagnosing a medical condition so much as sketching a cultural posture. “Scrambled” implies not just shortness but damage-by-processing, like an egg beaten past recognition. It suggests attention that’s been mechanically agitated by inputs rather than freely directed by curiosity.
The line turns on the sly swap in the second clause: attention span becomes a “metaphor” for “doses of reality.” That’s a double indictment. First, reality is no longer something we inhabit continuously; it’s something administered, portioned, and timed like medication or micro-content. Second, doses are controlled by someone else - platforms, news cycles, algorithms, the social pressure to keep up. The subtext is less “kids these days” than “look at the delivery system we’ve built.” If attention is scrambled, it’s because reality arrives pre-scrambled.
Griffith’s context as a cartoonist matters: cartoons thrive on compression, on the quick hit. He’s implicated in the same economy he critiques, which gives the observation bite rather than mere moralizing. It’s an inside joke with a sting: even the people trained to distill the world into digestible frames can feel the cost of a world that only shows up in frames.
The intent, finally, is to make distraction legible as politics and culture, not personal failure. When reality comes in doses, what disappears is continuity - the slow, inconvenient context where responsibility and meaning actually live.
The line turns on the sly swap in the second clause: attention span becomes a “metaphor” for “doses of reality.” That’s a double indictment. First, reality is no longer something we inhabit continuously; it’s something administered, portioned, and timed like medication or micro-content. Second, doses are controlled by someone else - platforms, news cycles, algorithms, the social pressure to keep up. The subtext is less “kids these days” than “look at the delivery system we’ve built.” If attention is scrambled, it’s because reality arrives pre-scrambled.
Griffith’s context as a cartoonist matters: cartoons thrive on compression, on the quick hit. He’s implicated in the same economy he critiques, which gives the observation bite rather than mere moralizing. It’s an inside joke with a sting: even the people trained to distill the world into digestible frames can feel the cost of a world that only shows up in frames.
The intent, finally, is to make distraction legible as politics and culture, not personal failure. When reality comes in doses, what disappears is continuity - the slow, inconvenient context where responsibility and meaning actually live.
Quote Details
| Topic | Internet |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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