The Genius and Social Media

Twenty years ago, blogging was the best way to communicate with readers and potential new fans, but it has become more like a platform of convenience and has grown second fiddle to social media, as mastering the art of scrolling down to the next video is the new norm. This must have had some kind of effect on people, at least a little. Then, I started to look closer.

Attention Span and Short-Form Content

According to scienceinsights.org, while long-term measurements of attention span haven't shrunk, the usage of rapid, high-novelty feeds like Reels, Shorts, TikTok, etcetera, overstimulates the brain's reward system, which gradually makes slower tasks harder to finish afterward. In controlled studies, according to content.scirpt.org, short-form feeds like the aforementioned reduce sustained attention, executive control, and working memory. In other words, writers these days are forced to adjust to a world where they write shorter poems, novels, and blogs. Institutesofinterneteconomics.org also recognizes that high-stimulus scrolling increases mental fatigue. While attention isn't gone, studies do agree that it has indeed impacted the habits of many people, most notably the ability to deep-focus.

Einstein and Deep Thinking

It makes me wonder if Einstein, Tesla, and Sir Isaac Newton lived today. Would they be as accomplished, or would their minds wander off into space? Just kidding. But it's a legitimate question to ask, believe it or not. Between 1903 and 1905, Einstein worked as a patent clerk in Bern, Switzerland, and lived in a small apartment while working as a patent clerk. As a patent clerk, he had a lot of time to think deeply about clocks, synchronization, and even electronic devices. While him waiting at a train station may be unconfirmed as inspiration for how some of his theories first appeared, he does refer to trains as examples in his analogies. Makes one wonder. His time in Bern impacted him as a person, which, in turn, impacted the world. In his words, he said, "That worldly cloister where I hatched my beautiful ideas." This slow environment gave him a lot of free time to think deeply. He did so at his desk, at home, and even with his friends.

That being said, let's imagine this scenario: Einstein surrounded by televisions, loud clutter, and a cellphone, looking at shorts and conversing with friends all day. Would he have been the man he would eventually become?

Newton, Solitude, and Distraction

Sir Isaac Newton was probably the smartest genius who ever lived, the man who brought us Calculus, the Laws of Motion, the Universal Law of Gravitation, Optics, and the mathematical equations of planetary orbits, even had his own period of isolation, much like Einstein did in Bern. Between 1665 and 1666, in response to the threat of the Great Plague, he retreated to his family farm, where he laid the fundamentals for calculus, optics, and gravity. Sometimes complete solitude or a peaceful environment may just be the thing a genius needs to come up with genius ideas. Imagine, for a moment, if Sir Isaac Newton spent even an hour of his time scrolling social media. Perhaps, with Newton, it wouldn't have made much of a difference since he was obsessed with work. Even in his writings, he viewed celibacy as a freely chosen lifestyle that was best for a life of scholarship.

Whether Newton would have been distracted or not in modern times, he most certainly wouldn't have liked the lifestyle. He was a known introvert who had a hard time connecting emotionally with people. Even as a child, he was rejected by his peers. His father died even before he was brought into the world, and his mother remarried when he was 3 years old, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother, toward whom he greatly had ill feelings. This left him with the inability to fully trust anyone at full capacity.

Sir Isaac Newton would have been a genius in any century, but, definitely in some capacity, social media may have interrupted his work. Imagine him sitting alone, coming up with a formula for gravity, then getting a notification from one of his colleagues asking him to check out an influencer's social media video. What happens when he finds it offensive, funny, or somewhere in between? Knowing how Newton was, he may just have ignored the notification altogether. Or perhaps not. He was hypersensitive, paranoid, vengeful, and volatile. Anything negative said about him would have made him angry. In this respect, it may have had him constantly scrolling to see what other people were saying about him. If we consider just his personality type, he may have gotten sensory overload in today's times, leaving him distracted in some capacity and, therefore, with diminished results.

Tesla and the Lonely Genius

Nikola Tesla was also quite the loner, but not quite as extreme as Newton. Like Newton, he too suffered from a traumatic childhood. He was obsessed with the number 3 and had an extreme phobia of anything round, like pearls. Among his weird habits, he required everything to be divisible by 3. He walked around the building 3 times before entering and was an extreme germaphobe. He washed his hands 3 times and used 18 napkins to clean his dining utensils. Like Newton, he never married. The inventor of alternating current, the Induction Motor, the Polyphase AC System, the Niagara Falls Hydroelectric Plant, the radio, the remote control, wireless power transmission, the Tesla turbine, the steam-powered oscillator, the speedometer, the ignition system, and the father of the modern world never married.

Genius, Relationships, and Personality Traits

In fact, whether coincidentally or not, with the exception of Einstein, many geniuses never married: Robert Hooke, Gottfried Leibniz, Copernicus, Henry Cavendish, Alfred Nobel, and Leonardo da Vinci. This may be more scientific than previously thought. According to Psychology Today, genes associated with higher intelligence are statistically linked to sexlessness. In other words, relationships and being a genius don't pair well.

·  ADHD and autism spectrum

·        Extreme introversion

·        Hypersensitivity

·        Contentment with loneliness — does not seek social settings

Final Thoughts

Whether social media would've affected the quality of work geniuses provided us remains to be seen. It really depends on "what if" scenarios. Would scrolling 15 minutes to an hour a day have distracted geniuses from their discoveries? One thing is certain: the world they lived in allowed them to thrive.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

· Social media and short-form content may make slower, deeper tasks harder to complete.

·  Modern scrolling habits can affect attention, focus, and mental energy.

·  Einstein, Newton, and Tesla are used as examples of geniuses who benefited from solitude, quiet, and deep thinking.

·  The piece suggests that peaceful environments may help great ideas develop.

· Newton and Tesla are portrayed as highly introverted figures whose personalities may have clashed with today’s social media culture.

· Would famous geniuses have achieved the same things if they lived in today’s distraction-heavy world?

·  The slower world these geniuses lived in gave them room to think, focus, and create.