Kids these days have short attention spans.

Or so I’ve often been informed. For example, Baroness Greenfield, an Oxford professor of ”synaptic pharmacology,” recently warned the House of Lords that social-networking websites ”are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance. As a consequence, the mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilized, characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize, and a shaky sense of identity.”

Yet having recently plunked my 20th-century mind down amid an otherwise superbly attentive young audience cheering on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, the seventh and penultimate film in the witches and warlocks series, I suspect the opposite is truer. When sufficiently interested, the new generation can display attention spans that boggle the old.

Read the whole thing there.