Problem: Technological progress has stripped humanity of their attention span.
Solution: Utilize that same technology to maintain civilization.
Seamus woke up and stared at his ceiling. It was a workday, but he could start his eight-hour shift whenever he wanted.
He turned on a podcast.
He shambled to the shower.
As he bathed, he played ‘Jump-Run-Skate’ on his ocular implant.
He played some music in the background.
In the corner of his visualization screen he played a pop-chemistry lecture video on mute.
After bathing he brushed his teeth while scrolling through his news feed.
He downed some Nutri-gel while checking out a forum on plant-care.
“Ready to start the day.” He stated.
His ocular apparatus directed him out the door and down to the street.
TASK 1: MOVE TRASH FROM NEARBY BIN TO DUMPSTER. DISTANCE: 23 FEET.
He saw the bin in question. Trash had piled up nearly to the top. He grabbed the sides of the bag and tied them while starting a new podcast. He carried the bag to the nearby alleyway, opened the dumpster and threw the refuse inside. As he reemerged onto the street, he saw another worker lining the trash bin with a new bag.
TASK 2: TRACE PDF ON COMPUTER FOR 2 MINUTES. DISTANCE: 67 FEET.
Seamus checked on one of his digital pets as he edited a photo he’d taken last night. He added the caption ‘Look at this cool spider!’ The strange orange arachnid had momentarily caught his attention, but he needed to apply some filters in order to make it really pop.
He entered the building he was instructed to enter, and watched a person vacate the computer he needed to occupy. He sat down and saw a PDF that had been partially traced in an engineering program. He followed the instructions and prompts from his ocu-vis and began tracing the document. Music played in his head, but he needed to dedicate full visual concentration to the task at hand.
20 seconds.
25 seconds.
30 seconds.
He began to shake. His attention span was being pushed to its limits.
65 seconds.
68 seconds.
70 seconds.
Over halfway there.
Keep…Pushing…
90 seconds
95 seconds.
100.
105.
110.
As the clock hit the two-minute mark he fell back into his seat with a sigh of relief.
GOOD JOB! GREAT FOCUS! YOUR BREAK HAS BEEN EXTENDED BY TEN MINUTES!
As Seamus vacated the seat, another took his place.
His ocu-vis took him to a nearby restaurant, where he was to clean a one-foot-wide section of wall.
He managed to finish editing his photo and share it with the world.
He separated fifteen recyclables from a large pile of trash.
He nearly beat his old high score in Cat-Catch.
He had to remove three shovelfuls of dirt from a growing hole.
He was forced to debate some idiot online who challenged his intelligence.
He carried an armload of pipes from the back of a truck to a waiting pallet.
His photo of the spider was doing fairly well. He realized it had been shared by a larger account dedicated to the wonders of nature.
A nearby auto-car had accidentally slid into a power-pole. His ocu-vis redirected him to the site, where he needed to take one of the provided brooms and sweep up two pounds of debris.
He did as instructed. Others were there as well, sweeping while engaged with their online worlds.
At some point Seamus realized his workday had ended.
He was back in his apartment, though he didn’t remember returning.
Indeed, he didn’t even remember what he’d done that day.
Like every other day, it had disappeared beneath a mound of tiny obligations and quick rushes of dopamine.
That was Seamus.
That was everyone.
The world was held together by AI stitching together the labor of millions of attention-strained zombies.
While asking a question about Brazilian Jujitsu and watching a video on the Black Death, Seamus didn’t realize he’d accidentally stepped on the fantastic orange spider.