Let’s contemplate popcorn.   Some don’t care for it and some absolutely love it.  I like it.   And I’m talking about buttered popcorn with salt which I rationalize won’t kill me because I don’t eat it all that often.  I wouldn’t want to develop an excessive popcorn consumption pattern!  Here’s a term I just heard last week, “Popcorn Brain”.  That’s a new one.  It has nothing to do with eating too much of the stuff.  It refers to the tendency for our attention and focus to jump quickly from one thing to another like popping corn kernels.  The constant stimulation from our electronics makes our brain accustomed to “popping” fast paced streams of information we find on the internet, our smart phones in particular.  This makes us increasingly less adept at handling the slower pace of real life.  This condition is known as “Popcorn Brain”.   Heavy social media usage encourages this brain behavior by providing a constant stream of stimuli that conditions our brains to get accustomed to and expect frequent distractions so activities that require sustained concentration become more difficult.  Research shows average attention spans are declining in line with social media use climbing.  The time a person can focus on one thing has dropped from 2 1/2 minutes to about 47 seconds over the last 20 years.  The more time we spend online popcorn brain continues to grow.  Those algorithms feeding us a constant stream of information are addictive and we need to not let social media dominate attention on its terms and set aside tech-free time. 

That’s Coffeetalk.  I’m Vic Dubois.