Week 6: Attention

List of things I noticed about what my attention liked or disliked when reading the readings:

- spaces between paragraphs
- shorter paragraphs
- giant blocks of text put me off, some sites seemed to have a design initiative with regards to white areas or lack of them however when not synonymous with the content of the text it just made the site boring and clunky
- clearly defined paragraphs also helps skimming articles so I can read the first few lines of paragraphs to gauge their importance to understanding the overall point
- INTEREST: if it's directly relevant to my life, it automatically is placed of higher importance and more attention is reserved for it
- as a visual society, if the site does not look appealing, the words have to be really really really really really engaging to retain attention
- more conversational language, i.e. not articles speaking to no one and not articles talking about what the author thought
- getting to the point
- outdated or non-universal references that have no meaning to me makes the entire article seem irrelevant
- it's easier to read when I know how much I have left, this is easier to calculate with pages of text and more difficult when pulling the scroll bar on the side of the window up and down

Thoughts about attention and memory:

- Facebook messaging pops up as a small window within the larger window of the site so you can still scroll while private messaging someone, this reiterates the idea of multitasking
- Multitasking has possibly emerged because some tasks do not require full attention e.g. chatting to a friend online. Wiser multitaskers know what to multitask and what not to. It can be more productive to multitask within categories and fulfil goals specific to those categories e.g. chatting to friends while listening to music means you maintain friendships with those people and catch up on the latest song from your favourite artist and overall take less time so you can go back to studying
- Interactive things receive longer spans of attention because they promote the concept of exploration and "seeking" of the next thrill
- I approach activities with a standard level of attention reserved depending on the activity (reading, watching, chatting) which is then reconfigured depending on the title (what affects attention rates?, cat plays beethoven, _friend_) which is then reconfigured depending on how interesting the first few paragraphs, seconds, or topic of conversation seems

Increased exposure to the same things embeds those things into our memory. Even exposure to something for two seconds that doesn't register into our consciousness can be embedded into our memory if that exposure continues regularly. As discussed with archives, these prostheses extend our brains and means we don't have to remember and store absolutely all information. We access information we need and when we don't need it, it remains within archives, often readily available.
While having a good attention span and good memory are excellent, admired, and useful skills, such a skill is no longer immediately necessary in our daily lives.
The technology we blame for stunting our memories and attention spans also supplements these drawbacks.