Attention, or the ability to focus on specific stimuli or
locations, is something everyone does daily. Since we can only focus on or pay
attention to one thing at a time, the question to ask is how do we hold the
attention of students and help train their skills? An article I read this week
brought up the notion of the digital age and its effect on people’s attention
span. I found myself agreeing on some of the topics, but I found myself
questioning others.
First, the
writer, Barry Schwartz, postulates that in this age people have “diminished
attention.” I do not disagree with him. However, his follow-up point I have an
issue with; Schwartz goes on to discuss how people are so used to getting their
news and information online that if the information they are looking for is not
succinct then they will lose interest. He goes on to say the information they
receive is, in his words, “up-to-the-minute” but it is too short and “frustrating
in their brevity.”
I have an issue with that statement
because as someone who gets his information in short tidbits, I do not seem to
have a noticeable issue with the brevity of the articles. I also have an issue
because whenever one of my professors asks for a 10 page paper covering a
specific topic I often end up with 8 or so pages of material and fill the rest.
On the other hand, when a professor asks for a 2-4 page paper on a similar
topic, I find it more difficult to come in under the four-page limit because I
have to pick and choose the most important information. I feel as an
information consumer we need to understand that shorter articles will not have
all of the information on the topic, but they will be a good starting point to
base a discussion off of.
The article goes on to talk about
attention and how it is like a muscle and needs to be trained. I completely
agree; attention needs to be strengthened and as consumers we need to be able
to use our attention to learn as much as we can. In this age, people do not
have the luxury to sit and spend 30 minutes to an hour reading articles on
everything that interests them. There would be no time for anything else. Yes
the information floating around on the Internet today is brief and succinct,
but I argue that it needs to be. A few semesters ago, one of my professors said something to the
effect of the New York Times today has a month or year’s worth of information
to someone in the early 1900’s.
Information is increasing, believe
it or not, faster than the number of people on the planet. And in order to keep
up with the inordinate amount of information available today, people need to
have their snippets of information. Without them people would be stuck on a
single topic for much longer than they should be. I will say the brief portions
of information on the Internet should be used as a starting point to build a
base of knowledge. I will end on agreement with Schwartz in saying that we need
to continue to teach children that the 100 word news story is not the only
source they have. Students should be taught to dig deeper and focus their
attention on subjects that interest them and know that the short articles are a
good base to begin to build off of, but should not be everything.
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