attention

 Put away your cell phones  Close your laptops  Close your eyes  Where does your attention go?

 Kaiser Family Foundation  Profiles of Generation M 2 Profiles of Generation M 2

 Stephen Colbert interview with Nicholas Carr, author of “The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains” Stephen Colbert interview

Yes, we are a little less focused, thanks to the electric stimulus of the screen. Yes, we are reading slightly fewer long-form narratives and arguments than we did 50 years ago…But what of the other side of the ledger? We are reading more text, writing far more often, than we were in the heyday of television. And the speed with which we can follow the trail of an idea, or discover new perspectives on a problem, has increased by several orders of magnitude. We are marginally less focused, and exponentially more connected. That’s a bargain all of us should be happy to make. Steven Johnson Yes, People Still Read, But Now It’s Social

Attention is the fundamental building block for how individuals think, how humans create tools and teach each other to use them, how groups socialize, and how people transform civilizations. Howard Rheingold Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media LiteraciesAttention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies, Educause

Paying attention to what you pay attention to is a key social literacy (also called meta-cognition)

Millions of business, interests, political groups and individuals are spending billions of dollars to get YOUR attention.

Nevada is still the winner:

American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that children are potentially exposed to 40,000 advertisements per year. Media Matters estimates that the typical American adult is exposed to approximately 600 advertisements per day.

Yet journalism exists NOT to sell a product, convince you to believe something, push you to vote a particular way, manipulate you to give your money away, etc. Journalism exists so that our society can function. It is the collective conversation we are having about what we have done, are doing and should be doing in the future.

How does journalism get attention in this chaotic environment?

 Naked News Naked News  Haiti News Network Haiti News Network

 What about news grabs your attention?  Should journalists pay more attention to the stories that are getting the most traffic, that are ed the most? Does that violate their independence?