this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2026
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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 41 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

They did not in fact find that the shorts are making you dumber. They said it affects your attention span.

Ironically I found this out in the first sentence of the article and then stopped reading.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 5 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah I can't imagine it making me dumber. Most of my shorts are interesting scientific facts/discoveries. Or CSS tips and tricks.

Attention span I can definitely believe.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 11 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

This may shock you, but most people watch really dumb fucking shit instead of scientific facts.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 5 points 20 hours ago

Then they were already dumb.

Short attention span correlates with low intelligence but short attention span doesn't cause low intelligence.

I can't remember the whole thing but there is a sort of pseudo research paper that got published exactly to demonstrate the difference between correlation and causation. In the paper they "found" that yellow teeth cause cancer.

Of course smoking causes yellow teeth, and cancer. The yellow teeth are correlated, but do not cause.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 2 points 18 hours ago

Not shocking at all. I was only speaking for myself.

[–] JustinTheGM@ttrpg.network 0 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Wouldn't the knock-on effects of a reduced attention span pretty much look like 'dumber'?

[–] echodot@feddit.uk -1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Intelligence is intelligence you can't reduce it by watching cat videos

[–] JustinTheGM@ttrpg.network 1 points 16 hours ago

Sure, but "being dumb" isn't an exclusive club for people with low intelligence. There plenty of very smart people that are also dumb. Hell, most AIs could be classified as smart but dumb.