Yo - Pay Attention! 140
For centuries, we saw information as something valuable, something worth paying for; we subscribed to the newspaper, read the ad, bought the movie ticket. But very soon, people may not even be able to give data away.
Buying attention is already an accepted part of doing business, says a new book called The Attention Economy, especially on "a planet with over five hundred TV channels and a trillion Web pages." Attention-getting and screening are becoming a profession all of its own.
Already, search engines like AltaVista can exchange favorable placement in search results for a fee. And publishers have paid Amazon for years for prominent attention of new books (they also pay book chains for placement of new books up front.). It's not hard to imagine a publisher paying a subscriber $50 to get their magazine for two years, rather than the other way around. They would still charge for ads, but ensure a steady subscription base. The attention crisis is becoming so severe that people will have to be paid to receive information. Davenport and Beck suggest this is, to some degree, inevitable.
It's no accident that we're the first society to develop widespread ADD. The controversies shrouding this disorder aside, the very idea would have seemed absurd in the pre-electronic, pre-digital era. It was boredom and ignorance that was epidemic. This is a culture drowning in instant, overwhelming information; losing its ability to figure out what, if anything, to pay attention to. We live in an Attention Economy, with forces on both sides -- sellers and transmitters, consumers and buyers -- struggling over how to manage attention.
The risks of not managing attention are enormous, as countless dot.coms, like traditional businesses before them, have recently learned. Educational institutions know, whether they admit it or not, that many of their students are paying less attention to their curriculums. Citizens pay less attention all the time to civics and voting. Media consumers spend less time reading papers, magazines, watching the evening news. Companies spend billions to design elaborate marketing strategies simply to get consumers to recognize their names, let alone believe their message or buy their products.
It's an increasingly difficult mission. Over the past generation, the amount of electronic information available to everyone has exploded. Executives and managers in particular get bombarded by much more data than they can possibly organize or use. Ditto for consumers, who flounder through sites and databases that sell and rate consumer goods, offer medical and legal information, facilitate research of almost every conceivable kind.
In fact, some information scholars -- like Thomas H. Davenport, director of the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change and John C. Beck of the UCLA's Anderson School of Management -- believe that the new currency of business is creating products and environments that understand the attention span of contemporary humans -- especially those in cyberspace -- and can get them to focus on data.
"Both on the Internet and in more traditional media like television, viewer attention is exchanged for money thousands of times a day," write Davenport and Beck in "The Attention Economy: A New Perspective on Business," published by the Harvard University Press. "Anyone who wants to sell something or persuade someone to do something has to invest in the attention markets. If I want the attention of a large group of customers, I try to get it by paying to monopolize their TV screens, Web pages, mailboxes, and ultimately their brains."
This issue goes way beyond business, though, and getting people's attention is increasingly tough to do. Attention has psychological and bio-chemical limits, and the hype culture is bombarding people with images and messages all of the time. The competition for attention grows daily, even though we only have so much attention to go around. Even the rare boss who gets 100 percent of her employees' attention will fail if she -- or her employees -- can't secure her customers' attention as well.
The authors offer some inventive ideas about managing attention. Education, they predict, will adopt briefer, more varied learning experiences, instead of the traditional lectures that "numb the brain's of today's students." A classroom, they suggest, might be outfitted with a panel of lights at the teacher's workstation, one light corresponding to each student's seat. When brain wave monitors not that a student is paying attention, his light will be green. If the student's attention lags and the light goes red, the teacher can engage the student by asking a question, focusing his voice in the student's direction, or using high-tech graphics or other tools. (This gives one pause, given the post-Columbine hysteria. In U.S. schools, teachers would probably zap kids who were bored rather than challenge them.)
Business will also have to radically alter their existing practices and methods. Since people pay attention most to things they develop and "own," companies have to start including consumers in the decision process at every stage.
Advertisers and other Net business entities are already finding that the "free cash and prizes just for looking at our ad or Web site" tactic is becoming obsolete. Those eyeballs have to be converted to names, subscriptions or memberships, credit card numbers.
Politicians, increasingly frustrated by more entertaining competition for citizen attention, turn to negative advertising or sensational accusations. Once-serious media organizations increasingly focus on scandal, weather and pet stories to gain market share and individual attention. Jerry Springer has always understood how to get people to focus.
So how do you get people to pay attention? By learning individual users' needs, demographics, insights, buying habits, responses to Web design; by hearing their complaints and kudos. Online advertising has to engage the viewer before it can lead to behavior change.
Pop-up ads annoy the hell out of a lot of online users, but they're impossible to ignore, while spam is not only simple to ignore, but something many consumers don't want to reward or encourage. Ads that feature the interests of the user and offer them services that are genuine and necessary are even better.
Anybody who's spent time online in the past few years doesn't need to be told that younger, wired Americans have different attention spans than their elders. They find conventional classroom formats suffocating. They zap away from commercials and mindless programming.They skip from website to website, write messages and chat responses that seem relentlessly shorter and faster; they're almost allergic to the bombardment of warnings, messages and exhortations that pass for news in our media.
Yet even the young are snareable. Personalization -- information that seems created for them alone -- is one way to compel attention. When a message's context is personalized, relating to a group the receiver belongs to or is interested in, or related to a question he or she is concerned about, the messages are often perceived as trustworthy or respected, influential or powerful, charismatic or appealing.
As for the recipient, according to Davenport and Beck, he or she is emotionally moved by the message, able to consider its meaning and implications, convinced that the message is important.
But most communications meet few, if any, of these criteria, so few people pay much attention to the overwhelming majority of messages they receive, often generated at enormous cost to wasteful affect.
That makes Attention Consciousness a hot new field in business, culture, education and politics. Politicians, CEO's, and Web designers who figure out how to incorporate attention-getting principles into their work are likely to prosper. But people and companies who indiscriminately send data out into the ether are wasting their money and our time. They are the next business casualties of the 21st Century.
Clearly, more information will require more delegation. Attention-sorting services will likely be in great demand as consumers look for help in organizing the tidal wave of information pouring over them.
But trading attention for free goods and services -- a favorite tactic of many first generation Net businesses -- is a devil's bargain. If attention is a scarce commodity, people will quickly realize that they shouldn't trade it away lightly. The trend of more information for competing for less attention can't go on indefinitely. The laws of physics and science dictate that people will ultimately begin to withdraw from the stress and complexity of an attention-devouring universe. Information providers will have to focus on quality, not quantity. People will seek respite from and alternatives to Hyperreality, the state fueled by too much media and data. The world may actually calm down, become quieter. The very rich will be able to live in attention-conservation zones, the authors say, and ordinary people will vacation in environments in which their attention can be devoted solely to people and things they love and enjoy.
In the end, the greatest prize for being able to capture attention will be the freedom to avoid it.
Undermining his own thesis (Score:1)
Now, what does he say? "The information overload caused by electronic media is the cause of ADD."
While I believe ADD is a myth created to cover up the fact that kids are being taught useless information at a snails pace in the government schools (and therefore are getting very fidgety in class), I also believe that if this "mental disorder" exists it has always been around. (It just didn't matter when people were doing useful work that they could see gave them a direct benefit.) Of course, I just think it is plain, old fashioned, run of the mill boredom. I doubt you hear about kids in high pressure asian schools with ADD, they are too busy cramming for exams.
Re:Am I the only one who can "tune out" the noise? (Score:2)
Re:ADD == total fabrication (Score:3)
This so-called disorder wasn't diagnosed, it was created [attention-...sorder.org]. Somehow humanity went a few millennium without having to administer Ritalin like M&Ms. Now the first time a child demonstrates boredom or pique, parents and teachers want to start the prescriptions.
And the grown-ups "affected by ADD" are even worse. Sheesh.
Here's a cure for ADD, and in the spirit of the Net I offer it gratis: go out and do a month's worth of manual labor, 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, regardless of weather or other environmental variables. You'll emerge with a laser-like focus for the most minute aspects of life. And no ADD.
Jack
I'll stick with journalists, producers, academics (Score:1)
Publishers will never *pay* you. (Score:1)
If there were magazines that *paid* people would subscribe just for the check.
Popups 'impossible' to ignore? (Score:2)
That's not my experience. Even on an ADSL line, whenever a link brings up a popup, I typically end up hitting the close button on the popup before it's had time to display much of anything. Popups are annoying as flys, and likely to chase me away from sites that use them, but they're easier to swat.
Re:Popups 'impossible' to ignore? (Score:1)
File->Preferences
Windows tab, lower area (document windows)
change from "allow documents to create windows" to "open in background"
Re:Nobody pays for my eyeballs :( (Score:2)
Because cable service is only available from one provider in your location? I.e., no one is competing with them for your cable dollar?
You'll be happy to view advertising (Score:2)
If advertising were truly useful, you'd be happy to watch it for free because it would help you make the best choice of what to buy. Today if you want to buy a new car you'd certainly go out and research what's available. Even now, that might include choosing to watch advertising (promotional videocassettes or whatever).
You'd only demand payment to view an advert if you thought it would be useless. 'I'm not going to waste my time watching bland Coca-Cola adverts unless you pay me to do it.' And if you think that, you probably wouldn't be influenced by the advertising anyway. It wouldn't have any useful information - otherwise you'd have wanted to watch it voluntarily - and any marketing techniques based on making the product seem attractive or building up a brand image would be unlikely to work.
If you see Benetton adverts on billboards across town, you may get the impression that their clothes are worth buying, if only 'subconsciously'. But would it have the same effect if you just sat there looking at X seconds of advertising in exchange for a few pennies?
The revolution WILL be televised (Score:2)
Audio Time Compression - keep it short !!!!!! (Score:4)
Similarly a big problem for channels like MTV, BET is that few people watch a video for more than 2 minutes so whatever product they have has to fit close to that or at least not be materially harmed from a commercial perspective if the audience only listens to the first 2 minutes - eg. people will still buy it.
It's about what people need. (Score:2)
My point here is that I have trouble getting worked up about how people have trouble getting other people to buy junk they don't need. Maybe they'll clue in and start producing something useful instead.
Re:It's about what people need. (Score:2)
Wonder why... (Score:3)
...this is such an Earth-shattering discovery. Anyone who'd been paying attention (if you're still able to, that is :-) ) could have seen this coming.
Television programming has been including more and more commercial content for years. Then there's infomercials. (Do people outside the U.S. have these oddities on their TVs?) Should ADD be blamed on Madison Avenue? MTV? Something in McDonald's hamburgers? Who knows. But the increasingly shrill nature of TV commercials (IMHO) and the number of ads you're seeing on most web pages nowadays, especially the increase in the number of those that are animated, seem to me to indicate that these folks seeking my attention are getting quite desperate. But we're tuning them out anyway. Perhaps our minds are erecting a protective barrier against the onslaught of information. If that's the case, greater efforts in making these attention getters more appealing (if one could use that word to describe a commercial) or memorable are just a waste of time.
As for adding technology to classrooms, as in Katz's posting:
Looking past the outright stupidity of such a proposal, less, and not more (IMHO), technology in the classroom would be a far preferable solution to the attention problem. Some would say that the explosion of new technologies in peoples' lives may be the source of all the ADD that's being diagnosed. Who needs the teacher keeping one eye on a magic board to tell him who's bored? That's the last thing the students need is something providing a distraction from the teacher's primary job. I had a thermodynamics professor who had a quite a low-tech means of engaging student's attention: If he saw you weren't paying attention, or even busy taking notes when he thought you'd be better off listening more attentively, he'd merely fire off a piece of chalk in your general direction. Got your attention and you tried not to let any more chalk projectiles fly past your ear. No expensive electronic classroom gizmos were necessary. And the money that would have been wasted on such a silly piece of technology went to pay for better educators.
Wean children off the technology that's supposed to be making it easier for them to learn (but are actually just high-tech spoon feeding programs) and perhaps the occurances of ADD will decline. My family just moved and I haven't installed an antenna for the TV and we haven't wanted to pay for cable. I've actually seen a difference in my daughters behaviour in the few weeks that our house has been without the rapid-fire, designed-for-those-with-short-attention-span, programming. And, amazingly, we've all managed to remain sane, happy, and productive. Much to the consternation, I'm sure, of the advertising agencies. (And, No, I wouldn't consider us Luddites. I think the 100baseT network of seven computers would get us kicked out of that club.)
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Re:ummm (Score:1)
Re:Popups 'impossible' to ignore? (Score:2)
Alternatively, some browsers allow you to selectively disable window.open(). Konqueror has this feature, and I thought Opera did too but I can't find it in the prefs; I have a feeling mozilla does, but 9.1.1 doesn't seem to like my system (sits forever without ever opening a window
Cheers,
Tim
You mean I don't ever have to work again? (Score:1)
My point is: Who is going to prove that you READ any of it?
"Boredom and Ignorance" are MODERN problems (Score:3)
Exactly. When we train children from practically birth to focus on pretty flashing lights and bleeping noises, anything that doesn't involve pretty flashing lights and bleeping noises becomes tough to pay attention to. In fact, anything else starts to seem ... BORING.
Sorry, Jon, but you are displaying your own ignorance here. Life was not, contrary to what Hollywood would have us believe, insufferable tedium until the harnessing of the electron. And I'm not convinced that "ignorance" has declined over the last century. Who is more ignorant, a 2001 teen who knows where all the weapons caches are in Quake III, but thinks food comes from grocery stores, or the rural teen of the last century (or the Amish today) who would be mystified by the computer, but read the newspaper and actually understood the myriad complex tasks involved in a farming household.
Right. We are bombarded with a constant barrage of information, most of which is useless and much of which is not even true. Meanwhile, we have lost silence and the time and ability to actually reflect on what matters.
But think for a minute: What could be more boring than this constant barrage? (The channel-surfer complaint: "500 channels and there's nothing on!!!???) And what could be a better definition of ignorance than not even knowing what merits attention?
Guinness? No way. (Score:2)
Not the first one (Score:1)
Golden Age (Score:2)
When I saw the headline for this piece, I couldn't help but wonder if it was inspired by this recent Onion article [theonion.com].
Progression of Usage of New Media in Users (Score:2)
~Wonder:
This is the opening stage. People look at the new media and are in amazed by them. People stand in awe at the potentials and think of how great thier lives could be if only they got involved. This is where most people start to go wrong: they dream up their own hype.
~Adoption:
You know how this goes. First you say 'Okay, I'll try doing e-mail' and then next thing you know you're an info glutton.
~Info Gluttony:
This is the stage Jon is focusing on. After adopting technology, people love it and want all the info they can get. Every little news story they can find, they read. Ever IM they get results in a big conversation. Every message board they post to turns into a huge debate. They take and give so much informaiton that they don't have time to do anything with it. This is where a lot of people are (especially all of you who post to Slashdot a lot
~Fallout:
Eventually people realize the fallacy of having more info than they can use and have a falling out with the new media. This doesn't mean giving them up, just a big reduction. No more hitting reload on the news sites every minute. Fewer IMs. Less Usenet usage. Few message board posts. Fewer mailing lists. For example, when I went through this stage, I reduced my regular Web site visits to Slashdot, Ars Technica, UF, Sluggy, and GameBoy Station. Also, I cut a lot of mailing lists that just weren't so useful to me and just went cold turkey pretty much on other stuff.
~Wise Usage:
Here in the final stage, after getting rid of all the glutt, you can make wise use of the info available. For example, I now have a few more sites that I read regularly and some that I just skim. I know what info I need, how much time I have to collect it, and how to skip that which just isn't useful. Alas, many people never make it to this final stage. Rather than becoming wise information users, they simply use the fallout as a correction that slows their info gluttony for a while, but they soon are back in full swing usage. They fall into a cycle of feasting and fasting: information spendthrifts, if you will. I know of no way to teach how to decide what information one needs wisely, other than to have a fallout, learn from it, and constantly keep evaluating how much inforormation is worth to you and what you really need.
BTW, here's $1 for reading all of that.
Am I the only one who can "tune out" the noise? (Score:1)
I don't think there is an "information overload" as stated, I think there are a lot of people who are too lazy to tune the crap out and just let themselves get bombarded. And I REALLY don't beleive the corelation with ADD.
People have enough trouble... (Score:2)
I don't know about y'all, but I see idiot cattle walking, chatting on their cell phones, oblivious to everything around them. I only wish more people would stand in traffic and get removed from the gene pool.
I live in Chicago, and I have to say that, for a large city, people are not directly rude or obnoxious, but they certainly are by omission. They choose not to pay attention to people standing around them, they stop their cars to double park on busy streets, they walk three abreast at a snail's pace on a busy sidewalk. They do any number if inane little things that make one want to shoot them.
What in the world would give one the idea that an advertiser might have to pay an individual to read an advertisement?
Inconsiderateness (is that even a word?) (Score:2)
I don't happen to think that it is very difficult to pay relatively close attention to one's surroundings in a big city. Hell, I think you are an idiot if you don't (that is "you" as in a generalization, not "you"), because you're like as not to be hit by a car or falling piano or whatever.
Cool (Score:1)
Re:"Boredom and Ignorance" are MODERN problems (Score:1)
This is true. That is why children should have their exposure to Television and video games and "pretty flashing lights" kept to a reasonable level during the first ten years of life or so. Personally, my parents didn't have very much money when i was small. We didn't get a TV until i was about 10 or 11 years old. Video games weren't allowed until quite a while after that.
I notice that when i compare myself to other 17 year olds who grew up with das blinkenlights since they were babies, i am appalled. They are immature and childish from my point of view. Now, when we did start getting more money in the house and i got a computer, i did catch up as far as technology goes. I know use it more than most, and i know where all the weapons caches are in Quake III.
However, my point is that i believe that i had enough time during my young and impressionable years to get a solid grip on reality and develop things like patience, discernment and a decent attention span. From my experience, friends i have that grew up in the same type of environment as me have similar levels of maturity in stark contrast with the rest of the teenage population that is all around us.
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Um, what? (Score:2)
As far as people's assessments, advice, and the like governing people's purchases is concerned: what the heck? I mean, really, people have been senselessly buying things based on the product's image for decades (at least).
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Caimlas
Yo -- what's new? (Score:2)
I know enough to put reliability ratings on everything I read. The traditional print and broadcast media are not usually blatantly biased, but they are biased almost all the time.
What I like is The Internet with it's open, uncensored, up-to-date and wide participation. It's a very rich information source if you're willing to work. Some would rather others filter it for them. Not me. Tradutore, tradittore . Filters always lose information and gain bias.
Yo -- what's new? (Score:2)
I know enough to put reliability ratings on everything I read. The traditional print and broadcast media are not usually blatantly biased, but they are biased almost all the time.
What I like is The Internet with it's open, uncensored, up-to-date and wide participation. It's a very rich information source if you're willing to work. Some would rather others filter it for them. Not me. Tradutore, traditore . Filters always lose information and gain bias.
yo right on (Score:1)
Solution to it all (Score:3)
Give em all "e-ritalin"
I dunno... (Score:1)
Can this really be such a surprise? We are inundated with advertising more and more, and in a more heavy-handed way than ever before. Also, the things that are being pitched are less and less notable, new or desirable.
I'm continually beseeched by adverts for credit cards, mortgage refinancing, drugs I don't need (I think, they never really say what they're for, "ask your doctor"), financial schemes and household cleaners that don't really have any real "competition" (I have too many credit cards, I don't have a house, what is "Zorbland", I don't have money to invest, bleach is bleach).
I know this has always been the case (NEW, BETTER FAB!), but it just seems to get and worse and worse as the outlets for advertising (and number of advertisers) seem to be expanding.
Eventually, you just learn to "block it out". I will still pay for content that warrants it, but not when I can get it for free. That's why media that mostly provide sports scores and weather reports are crying the blues.
I think we are actually becoming a more "sophisticated", rather than less, audience for advertisers. Car companies, for one, have learned that emotional reasons play a part in purchases (IE ads with SUVs parked on mountaintops), but you must have the product to back it up.
Smilodon
V V
This mentality in education is frightening (Score:5)
Having this kind of "business" consumers vs. sellers mentality in education could really contribute to a descrease in the quality of that education. I know that concept has been prominent here at Penn State University--that the students are consumers who pay for a service, that is, their education. Unfortunately, this has created lazier students who demand higher grades, because students realize that they are in control. Trying to compete with the Internet, television, and other forms of media to compel students can only make the situation worse.
It is no secret that the classroom experience, for the most part, bores students when compared to the high-paced, personalized media of today's mass media market. But I don't think the answer to captivating students is to integrate and use this technology as a replacement for traditional teaching methods. Once the education system tries to compete with mass media for young people's attention, it sets itself up to become a competitor, which could be a very dangerous game to play. Whereas media has in many ways taken a presentation-over-content approach in order to gain viewship, education cannot afford to compromise subject matter in an attempt to "defeat" television, Internet, etc. To do so is to compromise one of the very foundations of education.
I'm certainly not arguing that the new forms of media have nothing to offer in education; quite the contrary, they can be a powerful tool when used as a supplement. Technology allows the presentation to be altered, the content to be more easily accessible (class notes on a web page, online discussion forums). Nonetheless, it is important to keep the distinction between the two. I mean, imagine if class were like the Internet...students looking at a large monitor as the professor jumped from page to page, each with vital information. But what if in an attempt to keep the students interest, the professor only spent about five seconds on each page? Most of the information would be skipped, lost. As Brooks said in The Shawshank Redemption, "The world went and got itself in a big damn hurry." If that mentality overtakes the education system, it'll be even worse off than it already is.
Re:"Boredom and Ignorance" are MODERN problems (Score:2)
It fascinates me at how readily most people allow themselves to become "layer-dependent" - e.g. only operable at the top layer of the OSI model (to borrow the abstraction) and completely, intentionally ignorant at any lower level.
Whether its food ("hamburger comes from the grocery, not the cow"), energy production ("ban nuclear/coal/oil! hey, who turned off the lights?"), or just the minimal maintenance activities around the house and yard, they're horribly overspecialized and useless should they lose their lower-layer support. It is interesting to note that the same process of specialization appears to go hand-in-hand with a detachment from processes of reason (is there some straying from reason and encouragement of relativism that must happen to facilitate such specialized dependency?)
It's interesting to note that these extremely "climatically" dependent creatures usually go away during any period of hardship - e.g. economic depression (just like a drought kills off the weak). It's hard to rationalize food on the table that doesn't exist.
I'd have to agree with you that Katz's assessment of pre-electron era boredom is horribly naive at best, and more likely intentionally misleading. Given the dawn to dusk labor ritual of the era, there wasn't time to sit around and get bored. Then again, most of our references come either from depression-era ethics or colonial expansion ethics. Visit the decaying societies in Europe of the same period and you'll find the same boredom and societal suicide that Katz alludes to.
Instead of media-induced ADD, a generation of baby boomer parents who demanded nothing of their children (other than to be their friends) is a more probable cause.
Per the rest of Katz's post, did you sense the total rambling and general lack of coherence? From mind-reading lights in school to "focusing on the actual needs of the customer" statements of obviousness, I'm afraid ol' Katz is losing it.
*scoove*
Re:Nobody pays for my eyeballs :( (Score:4)
It was amusing, however, turning in the digital cable boxes but keeping the cable modem and phone service (which also comes thru the cable line). The cable provider didn't know what to do!
The fellow at the counter who I returned the boxes to thought at first I must be a "disconnected for nonpayment" - since NO ONE returns their cable tv voluntarily. He looked up in puzzlement and said "But... your account is fine!"
Then he figured I must be moving, and wondered where the cable modem was. He couldn't understand that I was keeping that but not the TV. He had to ask a supervisor how to credit the return of the digital TV converters but not the cable modem - and in fact told me I'd have to buy it so they could resolve the account.
The final proof of their confusion was when they disconnected my TV... by chopping the wire in back of my house (immediately killing the live phone and cable modem). A lengthy discussion with the customer service supervisor indicated that they simply don't have a process contingency for people who want phone and Internet, but not TV.
Yes, you're not doing your part for society if you're not staring at TV advertisements every evening! ("Don't make me tape those eyeballs to the screen!")
*scoove*
Re:Golden Age (Score:1)
Which I've always wanted to do, incidentally. :)
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A lot of that sounds pretty whacked (Score:1)
Yeah whatever (Score:2)
Get with the times, Jon. (Score:2)
That has already been done. You can read all about it over at Fucked Company [fuckedcompany.com].
Re:ADD? (Score:1)
It's generally not a good idea to take historical fiction as history. I really enjoyed the TV series the Untouchables (90s version - alas, I was almost alone in this). Part of the amusement, though, is that Elliot Ness was portrayed as an earnest yuppie. I thought this was interesting, but I never went around saying, you know, yuppies were around before 1940 - look at Elliot Ness.
Whether or not most ADD has a biological component, there's no doubt at all that there's an environmental component. That's why there are environmental adaptations, right?
Your point, which is a straw man argument anyway, isn't particularly supported by your so-called evidence. Notice that I don't call you names about it, by the way.
Re:ADD? (Score:1)
More dubious logic. Have you read every word written on the subject? It took me two minutes on Google to find a counterxample.
Look up Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates And What You Can Do About It on Amazon. You'll find the following:
So when was adult ADD first "defined and diagnosed"? You claim it was "decades beforeIt happens I agree with Katz - ADD would never have been taken seriously as a diagnosis until recently, whether or not that should have been the case. What's more, its occurrence as a syndrome is probably more common nowadays than previously, and contrary to your sweeping assertion, at least one MD expert in the field also believes that.
Re:ADD? (Score:1)
I specified adult ADD, because that is what we are talking about here. The information you throw at me like a weapon appears in Sudderth & Kandel "Adult ADD, the Complete Handbook" Prima Press, 1997. It is immediately followed by
Let's see, you have gratuitously insulted Katz for a comment you disagreed with, you used a Hollywood movie to back up your argument, you made an unwarranted and demonstrably false broad generalization, when I found a counterexample you discounted it, and now you throw irrelevant facts at me.
But you're getting moderated up and I'm not. A sorry situation. I wonder what proportion of the people who modded you up are the proud owners of a Ritalin 'scrip.
The question as to how much adult ADD is overdiagnosed to the extent of being medically sanctioned drug dependency is not the topic at hand, though. The topic is whether the "ADD" behavior cluster is promoted by modern life and whether the diagnosis would have been taken seriously in the past. As far as I can tell, Katz is right on the money, and nothing you've said constitutes a sound (never mind polite) argument to the contrary.
"Yo"?? *yawn* Oh, wait... (Score:1)
Not that Katz doesn't have a point or two, but the title is rather off-putting...
I learned long ago that most calls for attention that start with "Yo!" aren't worth my time. At least he didn't use the stale and oh-so-tired lousy coach phrase "Listen up!" which really isn't worth my time. When I hear that one, I know there is nothing of any use to me following it, so why should I bother?
See, it is possible for attention-grabbers to lose what they seek by the mere act of seeking it.
As for pop-ups on web pages, turn scripting off. This may make the web 'boring' to those who need constant stimulation, but it's blessed relief for those of us who want to think about actual content. I would like my browser of choice[1] to allow by-page selection of scripting, for the precious few pages that use scripting for something genuinely useful.
[1] Opera. Whichever platform.
This would be a really weird situation (Score:2)
Re:what was that all about? (Score:2)
clever! of course you do have to take into account the fact that Jon Katz isn't a very good writer, so there's a real reason to skim read it, apart from just a lack of attention. for a better analysis of the need for attention, be sure to read Aldus Huxley's Island [amazon.com].
if you're going to read about attention, it should at least be from somebody who knows how to write.
ATTENTION. ATTENTION. HERE AND NOW BOYS [the-intuitive-self.com].
- j
We Already Do This (Score:1)
no different that how it already is (Score:1)
Oh dear God, NO!!!
Seriously JonKatz, where exactly did you find such a large rock to live under? Look around... the world in which we live fits your 'prediction' pretty well already, and has for the last 50 years or so.
On a personal note, I've paid attention to your piece since Slashdot told me to.. to whom should I send the bill?
----
This Is What Multilevel Marketing (D'OH!) Is About (Score:2)
Re:Nobody pays for my eyeballs :( (Score:1)
Isn't this called... (Score:1)
Advertising?
Ask, Recieve, Complain. (Score:1)
This is what we wanted. We got it. It's working correctly.
Small example - see the anti-globalisation movement. The stories started on sites like indymedia - got socitey-moderated up to larger sites like
G.H.
one possible reason kids can't pay attention... (Score:1)
ever heard of a developmental optometrist? Neither had I, until a guy I'd gone to visit did some simple tests on my vision system...
Question: What was the name of your first high school math teacher?(please think about it, ask your friends too)
Did you noticed where your eyes moved? Whenever you access your memory, your eyes will tend to move in one direction or another. My eyes go straight up. Where do your friend's eyes move? Kids (& adults too, i suppose) with poor memories will tend to not have a very strong eye movement when they access their memory system.
Another thing developmental optometrists do is check your eye-tracking ability. (this is the quick test that was done on me). Simply (though the doctors do a more advanced version): take the tip of a pen, ask your subject to focus on it. Move it around his/her field of vision, across upper, center, and lower arcs (and in & out in the center too), smoothly but with random changes in direction. Watch your subject's eyes for "stuttering" and/or losing the target completely. When this test was done on me, both eyes did well tracking the pencil eraser, except my left eye lost in in the lower left arc, and had to jump to find it again. spooky.
Difficulties tracking in the various arcs have been found to correspond on different (negative) behavior patterns (and I really wish I had my materials here with me to say what they are). Such things as not being able to hold your attention on anything for very long, difficulty emphasizing w/ other's emotions (classic school-yard bully syndrome), misc. other learning difficulties (such as ex. us of a president Lyndon & Lady Bird Johnsons' daughter experienced [afva.org]).
so back ontopic, maybe the whole thing about people not paying much attention starts with defects in their visual systems? The issue is a helluva lot more complex than that, but this is certainly important.. I found a doctor through babousa (link below), I hope to have a stronger attention after I start (assuming I will) vision therapy next monday..
Baltimore Academy for Behavioral Optometry (BABO) [babousa.org] - has some articles on Behavioral Vision Care [babousa.org], though the site is mainly for care providers.
vision-therapy.com [vision-therapy.com] - check out their success stories [vision-therapy.com]. From the first one:
http://www.add-adhd.org/ [add-adhd.org], look at ADD/ADHD, Vision and Learning: Comments on undetected vision problems [add-adhd.org] by Dr. Donald J. GetzAs you know, my son graduated vision therapy last week. It has been an amazing process to see the changes in his attitude and behavior over the past six months since he began the therapy.
I must admit, in the beginning, my husband and I were extremely skeptical about the whole vision therapy process. It seemed as though it was a newfangled, hip medical condition that everyone was being diagnosed with. We only signed on because if there were a chance that you were correct in your diagnosis, we owed it to our son to explore that possibility.
When he started the therapy, he was a child who did not take on academic challenges well. We were told he was bright, but his reports from teachers did not mirror that evaluation. There were always reports that he could be performing better. In addition, he had developed a variety of subtle "tics" which were constantly changing, but it was clear that he was not happy in his own skin. At one point, a respected neurologist, to whom we had gone, diagnosed him with mild "A.D.D." and suggested putting him on drugs if the issues did not improve.
You must understand that all of these issues were subtle. He was a child that everyone liked. He was not a problem in school. He was not the kind of kid who was obviously troubled or making trouble. He was just not performing to his potential and was internalizing his stress. We took him to see you based on a recommendation from my friend whose child had similar issues and was in vision therapy.
It was a slow, gradual process, but about a month into the therapy, we began to see behavioral changes. He was more cooperative at home and at school. Over the next several months, he unilaterally decided to elevate himself into the highest spelling group in his class. He began to get perfect scores and even took on bonus words with enthusiasm. He started to read without complaining and actually started enjoying books. His teacher began telling me that he was raising his hand more and contributing. His math skills improved tremendously as did his self-esteem.
---
All right, Jon... (Score:3)
Re:Am I the only one who can "tune out" the noise? (Score:2)
OK, so I've probably got great brand-recognition; show me a logo from any of the top 500 consumer retailers and I could probably identify it and tell you what the company sold. But, unlike my parents, I don't feel obliged to buy Pepsi or whatever just because a celebrity was paid a vast amount to appear in an advert and tell me it was cool. I prefer to make informed purchases. I can only think of 2 adverts in the past few years that, without any other help from reviews, have actually interested me enough to buy something, and they weren't for massive purchases. And I think this is because I (and a lot of other people about my age [22]) have learnt that advertisments can't be trusted because they're trying to make a buck, not be our friend.
And brand recognition can work negatively too - I make a point of not purchasing anything with a really annoying advert (if I can possibly avaoid it, naturally) and I suggest everyone else does the same.
Companies can do all they like to grab my attention, but ultimately it's still advertising and I'm so horribly de-sensitised to it that you could bombard me with annoying jingles all day round and I still won't buy.
Companies are going to need to start looking at brand quality again.
Kill your television (Score:1)
You are the product.
Not a predetermined fate (Score:2)
I think this scenario is only possible if people are indeed interested in an obscene variety of what are, quite frankly, mindless stupid things. This is not meant to be flame-bait. But much of the information competing for attention is not "knowledge" per se; it is some form of titillation or advertisement. This "information" exists in American society because its producers know that someone, somewhere, will be interested, and that's the source of the problem. An uneducated, uninterested populace provides the fuel for this fire; technology only provides the means.
When the authors mentioned by Katz claim that this situation is to some degree inevitable, I'm not sure if they mean inevitable as a result of particular social factors that exist in the US or inevitable in general. If they meant the former they are absolutely right. In a capitalist society where citizens' true appraisal of something's importance is how much money is spent on it, look at our education budgets.
Drawing some lessons from basic economics, treating information and attention like supply and demand shows that there are two ways to reduce the current level of saturation: decrease supply or decrease demand. Supply is here to stay. But if this were to become a society where people are more interested in science and public policy and other productive areas of information the demand for drivel would fall dramatically. There's a reason the situation is far worse in the US than in other advanced-industrialized nations. Real education is the answer.
On the other hand, I think Katz' conclusion about how we eventually must begin to withdraw from the information flood is totally wrong. People are more likely to succumb rather than to fight back -- the whole article is about how the flood is molding people into conformity with its goals. This must be fought by demanding better, not by retreat.
ADD (Score:1)
It's people like Katz who propogate ignorance about ADD Society didn't "develop" this disorder, it was there forever but was only recently diagnosed. [add.org]
What was the point of this article again? Oh yeah, that there are a billion people handing out useless information on the Internet. Thanks for driving the point home, Katz.
Re:Nobody pays for my eyeballs :( (Score:1)
I am not the person that television tells me I should be.
Nothing New Under the Sun (Score:2)
The business of getting attention is nothing new. There are PR firms that have been in business for almost a century. I'd say that this problem has been around ever since information became industrialized, and that happened late last century. Heck, it probably began to be a problem as soon as reliable telegraph service became available. Suddenly you could information from across the world in time to actually make decsions that could affect the event's outcome. So, one reason that news has become briefer is that an event is no longer reported after the fact, but as it happens. So, detailed after action reports became a series of just in bulletins. This has led to some problems. For instance, most of us have a good idea what's going on right now in the world, but have little idea of the forces that create the situations we read and hear about. And, it's very seldom that we ever see a followup that tells us how everything settled out. I think that the single biggest affect of communications technology is that we tend live in the now in the Western world with little notion of our history or where we're going. This has been the case at least since TV became widespread.
In terms of who to trust, we're actually better off than we were in say the thirties. Unfortunately in America we're slipping. Back in the day, news was a local monopoly controled by the dominant news paper. These days you can read the LATimes, the NY Times, listen to the BBC, and watch Nightline to compare the coverage. Of course, these days, there tends to be little difference between the major news organization is vanishing as national monopolies gobble up diversified local news organizations. Let's not even get into corporate self censorship! So who do we trust? In America, the answer increasingly no one. People are turning off from news simply because we've grown accustomed to the talking heads lying to us. So, we're heading back to the bad old days right quick.
Re:People have enough trouble... (Score:2)
Wow. That's pretty harsh.
I live in Chicago, and I have to say that, for a large city, people are not directly rude or obnoxious, but they certainly are by omission. They choose not to pay attention to people standing around them, they stop their cars to double park on busy streets, they walk three abreast at a snail's pace on a busy sidewalk. They do any number if inane little things that make one want to shoot them.
Chicago is a pretty busy city. If these people you're referring to tried to take it all in, they'd end up standing on a corner somewhere drooling for hours at a time. That they ignore their surroundings and can concentrate on the task at hand -- talking to a client on the phone, going to a meeting, fantasizing about Angelina Jolie -- is evidence that they're able to actually focus on something. Why is that a problem?
Except walking slow and blocking the entire sidewalk. I'm from New York, and I know just what you mean. I !@#*ing hate that.
Re:Guinness? No way. (Score:1)
Re:Read the article before you post (Score:1)
I tried, but it didn't have any cool pictures or java games, so I lost interest.
the problem there is so much crap to wade through (Score:1)
Even something like the telephone (which rarely rang 35 yrs ago) is now a hotline for every ***hole who wants to sell me something.
However, two things (besides pr0n) get my attention.
* A live human
* A good book
Re:Hes got some good points (Score:1)
School is unpleasant. The reason it is unpleasant is that humans did not evolve to sit in a classroom for a significant portion of the day and read, write, and listen to lectures. They evolved to learn by following their parents hunt and gather and tan hides and chip rocks. However, we can't go back to the old hunter-gather society, there are simply too many people. (A nuclear war could bring us back to the good old days before schools, but I think that is an extreme option.) People now need to be able to endure the unpleasantness of being forced to learn things they don't want to learn in order to be successful. The purpose of school, remember, is not just to teach you information, but to teach you to behave in such a way that you will be useful to the corporations that you will work for. It's purpose is to force you to pay attention to things you don't want to pay attention to, because that is what you are going to do in the work world. If schools cater to a student's inablility to pay attention rather than try to force the student to pay attention, then the student will be useless to the corporate world. If US schools produce a majority of graduates who can't pay attention, no one will be able to run things effectively and we will have to hire people from other countries to do that work.
We live in a meritocracy. Unless schools train children to behave in a way they did not evolve to behave, the children will not have to skills to produce in our society. And let's face it, some people have to produce if we are to survive. Until AI and robotics gets to a point were we're all unemployed, school will be unpleasant.
Laws of science? (Score:1)
Huh? I have not had any complaints about Katz's work before, unlike many others on slashdot, but this statement confounds me. First, physics is a science the last time I looked. Second, exactly what laws of science tell us this?
I realize that he is just summarizing the contents of the book, but to present the author's view in a supportive manner as he does and then use this statement tells me that Katz is not quite as bright as he pretends to be.
I've used the slashcode filters to weed out articles on christmas and a couple of other things I have little interest in. Guess I'll have to add Katz to that list.
Ignoring Pop-Ups? (Score:2)
What?
What planet are you from? (Score:3)
Please don't tell me you are so naive as to not know that it has always been this way.
AMEN (Score:1)
----
ADD real; Ritalin as candy bad (Score:2)
I would never accept "I have ADD/ADHD" as an excuse not to finish homework, etc. But acknowledging that some people's solutions are different than others isn't bad either. Self-titrated (doc decides the maximum, but you don't have to take it all the time) can be a wonderful aid in otherwise difficult situations. However, forcing kids to take it all the time as is common in this society is quite wrong, for a number of reasons.
(self-titration of some drugs is very bad, but Ritalin isn't one of them. Like prescription Tylenol, it can be taken "as needed" up to a maximum. Do not follow this strategy for antidepressants or antipsychotics, Prozac for instance) I am not a doctor, lawyer, or any other official oer.
Getting it wrong (Score:1)
"We usually relied on third-party judgments by gatekeepers and screeners -- journalists, producers, academics -- to tell us what we needed to know."
Editors and contributors at Slashdot are the first to whine about geeks being generalized or the "rest of the world" not "getting it" when it comes to so-called "geek culture." This weeks' JonKatz rant is based on the very premise that we all used to subscribe to the New York Times and listen to Walter Cronkite's evening newcast for our news. Not true.
"For centuries, we saw information as something valuable, something worth paying for; we subscribed to the newspaper, read the ad, bought the movie ticket."
Again, a very broad generalization that isn't true. But I'll make a generalization to counter it: smart people know that it isn't information that is valuable, it's reliable information that's valuable. And, though I'm not sure if JonKatz is just being cynical but, many of us used library cards so we got the information without paying for the movie ticket.
"Buying attention is already an accepted part of doing business...."
"Already, search engines like AltaVista can exchange favorable placement in search results for a fee. And publishers have paid Amazon for years for prominent attention of new books (they also pay book chains for placement of new books up front.). "
Ok, these are facts. But interesting in light of...
"The risks of not managing attention are enormous, as countless dot.coms, like traditional businesses before them, have recently learned. Educational institutions know, whether they admit it or not, that many of their students are paying less attention to their curriculums. Citizens pay less attention all the time to civics and voting. Media consumers spend less time reading papers, magazines, watching the evening news. "
Pardon the coarseness of my argument, but well, duh! JonKatz asserts that attention is bought. Then, with a straight face, mere paragraphs later, wails about the enormous risks of not paying attention. As long as we're asserting things about people in general: People don't pay attention because, on some level, they understand that information isn't organized according to their own priorities but according to others' priorities. Why pay attention when the material is a lie, is manufactured and has nothing to do with my interests?
That's why I find irony and detachment so much more fun. It's much more fun to pay attention to things that interest me. So I'll watch Springer to laugh at the rednecks, "West Wing" for the wit, some commercials for the hotties, read the comics and sports sections of the Daily News ('cause the Times is too prententious for my tastes) and watch "Yankee Doodle Dandy" on TCM tonight because it's a great film about a great guy.
In the current world, everything is manufactured. So what I pay attention to is essentially irrelevant, certainly on the so-called national scale. If I watch a show or don't watch a show, it doesn't matter. If I vote for president or don't vote for president, it doesn't matter. (Local elections are different.) It's all been manufactured. And just like anything manufactured, I'll just throw it in the trash when I'm done.
The problem with advertising is (Score:2)
Re:what was that all about? (Score:4)
"I perceive that there is a trend occurring in America, because there is an element of our culture which I just became aware of, so it must be a new thing. By telling you about it, I am a journalist, but better than most journalists because I am into that whole Open Source thing that all the kids seem to be talking about these days.
Anyway, everything bad, frightening and/or dangerous about this trend, which I (nobody else) have boldly discovered, is the fault of Corporate Greed. We are in grave immeditate danger of becoming slaves to a Corporatist state. Boo!
Also, everything good, interesting, or revolutionary about this trend is the result of young people, who obviously have more energy, creativity, and all-around coolness than me, so I am trying to associate myself with this new trend of theirs so I can feel that I am superior to all those other aging Boomer journalists, who are just slaves to the Corporate State. By the way, if somebody from Wired is reading this, can I have my job back? Look at how many responses my Slashdot columns get! I can really bring in a lot of eyeballs for your ad revenue."
You are now free to skim all future Katz articles and read the vastly more interesting discussions which follow them.
This book report's length (Score:1)
Re:Ignoring Pop-Ups? (Score:1)
ADD an intentional creation? (Score:1)
I can't help but wonder if Katz intended to say "coincidence" here vs. "accident." Is he really implying that ADD (assuming here it's a real, diagnosable disorder) was intentionally created by marketers intent on fragmenting attention to more messages? That seems pretty unlikely, as well as counterproductive.
However, substitute "coincidence" in the phrase, and it seems more likely, if not somewhat obvious. (Not just trying to jump on the Katz-bashing bandwagon!)
Re:what was that all about? (Score:1)
The worst vice is advice...
weak definition of information (Score:1)
Ahh, Harvard, the Stanford of the East. These academics need to get off the dole and work for a living.
Seriously, how much information is really being broadcast on these "500 channels" and how small a handful of megacorps own them. We know its all just infomercials anyways.
And the news ("information") these days is weaker than ever. Larry King interviewing that retard Jon Stewart like he was the other night isn't news. Stone Phillips talking to cancer victims and crime victims isn't news either. Tune into the state-sancitoned media conglomerates and show me some real "information." Good luck. You'll see a bunch of sappy human interest stories, complete with cheeseball soundtrack and video effects.
Its all propaganda to keep the eyeballs in place, nothing more, nothing less.
Too long (Score:1)
Re:E-Prime (Score:1)
Oh, wait--I mean to say, E-Prime appeals to the Commie mentality.
Re:E-Prime (Score:1)
I actually stumbled across E-Prime not too long ago--chances are good that I saw it mentioned on Slashdot. In some ways, it sounds like a good idea. I suppose my main concerns about it would be:
1) A little more cumbersome than regular speech--though unless you were looking for it, you might read several paragraphs without realizing it was E-Prime. Much easier to read than to write, though I imagine the knack could be acquired without too much trouble.
2) I'm not completely convinced that the mental shortcut of saying "x is a y" is entirely unjustifiable. I will allow that easy, thoughtless categorization has played a large role in countless historical tragedies; but I'm not sure that E-Prime isn't "throwing out the baby with the bathwater."
what was that all about? (Score:4)
---
Utter drivel... (Score:1)
Speaking of paying attention (Score:1)
well--kinda. (Score:1)
1) take a few good points
2) add some paranoid delusions of corporate takeover, mind control, ineffectual government etc.
3) throw in some foreboding words and "horrible things to come"
4) make good points get lost in the wave of nausea induced upon readers due to steps 2 and 3
this one seemed a little more crazy from the offset however, so at least he is warning us now.
--rhad
I'll take a subscription to Playboy (Score:3)
Newsstand attendant: Are you going to buy that Playboy magazine!!"
Me: I'm only looking at the pictures....
Working from a flawed assumption: (Score:2)
Maybe you did, Katz. I thought everyone knew there was never any such thing as an objective newspaper or an unbiased historian.
ADD? (Score:2)
Don't be a twit, Jon. Ever watch the movie "Amadeus"? Mozart was probably a classic candidate for Attention Deficit Disorder [everything2.com], and the movie depicted his symptoms to a T.
Just because ADD wasn't defined until the twentieth century (1902, mind you, not 1985 as you seem to think) doesn't mean the twentieth century caused ADD.
Re:ADD? (Score:2)
Well, yes, there actually is. But my point still comes down to the fact that ADD was first defined and diagnosed decades before the advent of the Information Age. The quote seems to imply that ADD is somehow caused by watching too much television, playing too many video games, and watching too many advertisements -- no authority on ADD ever made this claim.
Re:ADD? (Score:2)
Done. This is the first I've heard of this very recent book and its author, as opposed to the better-known and more-involved Edward M. Hallowell ("Driven to Distraction" [amazon.com]) and Daniel Amen ("Healing ADD" [amazon.com]). According to his own writeup on Amazon, he's a family physician with an M.D. who happens to be diagnosed with ADD himself, without any special training in neurology or psychology. I don't consider that an authority.
Getting back to the root issue: ADD was first investigated in 1902 in England by Dr. George Fredick Still, who called it a "defect of moral control". A decade later, physicians in America were independently studying it and calling its sufferers "minimally brain damaged". In 1937 it was discovered that amphetamines, of which Ritalin is one, relieved the symptoms of ADD in children (data borrowed from here [about.com]). That's a short history of the disorder from the years long before television, video games, and electronic toys ever existed. Katz's assertion that the idea of ADD as a treatable condition would be "absurd" in the pre-electronic era is itself absurd, given these facts.
In fact, the entire idea that ADD didn't exist before the twentieth century is itself a fallacy, because it hadn't been studied and diagnosed until the twentieth century. Alzheimer's disease is also being more widely diagnosed in recent decades; does that mean that a lifetime of exposure to advertising causes Alzheimer's? The arrival of modern entertainment and the widespread diagnosis of ADD is coincident, not causal.
The general consensus is that amphetamines resolve ADD symptoms by raising the dopamine and seratonin levels in the brain, although the mechanics aren't positively identified. It's also been shown using scans that brain activity in ADD/ADHD sufferers is actually done in different locations than in non-sufferers. While this doesn't show the affliction is genetic, it is a strong indicator that ADD is more than a matter of not being interested in something for more than a short time. As a sufferer myself, I can attest that it's often simply impossible to screen out the noise and intrusions around me to focus on just one thing, no matter how much I want to do otherwise.
Katz is the furthest thing from an expert in ADD, based on what I've read about him. I'm not an expert, either, but at least I can claim to have read a couple of books on the subject.
Infomercials (Score:2)
Re:We Already Do This (Score:1)
But here's a simpler one: companies pay for us to watch TV for free and read web sites like this one for free, heavily subsidize the cost of magazines and newspapers and give us professional sports at far less than the cost of salaries and overhead -- so that we'll watch or read their ads instead of their competitors.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Free Subscriptions (Score:1)
Yeah, sure, I could get paid for subscribing to some magazine but that doesn't mean I'll have the time or the interest (there are some *really* bad "technology" magazines out there) to bother reading them.
Read the article before you post (Score:1)
Yeah right (Score:2)
What was he saying? (Score:4)
what was I saying? Something about an X-10 webcam... wait... now I'm typing..
nevermi
TLC is notorious for this (Score:2)
Re:Am I the only one who can "tune out" the noise? (Score:2)
I concur. As the step-parent of a kid who's suffering from ADD, I can tell you for certain that ADD is caused by a chemical imbalance, and not like Katz suggests by an overload of information. Katz, drag your head out of your ass and don't comment on medical issues that you apparently don't know anything about.
Re:Nobody pays for my eyeballs :( (Score:2)
Technology and Education (Score:2)
If nothing else, technology will make the linear thinking obsolete and open the door for alternative languages, interesting hypertexts, and more diverse histories accessible to students.
It's easy to label the students as the "ADD" or "MTV"generation, but they've always existed in each generation and this thinking is probably more a desire to get out of the box more than anything.
The purpose of the traditional, American classroom was to socialize young people to participate quietly in the established social order. American twenty-somethings in the 1940's and 50's did not have the internet; they bought Charlie Parker records instead.
Perhaps the dismay at technology's boom with young people is that each individual will live their own "underground" and only give the now-crumbling Westernized knowledge doled out in college lectures the brief nod it deserves.