This is my first Blog Post, apperently we are meant to do 3 a week. So I better start.

In the first “Lectorial” for Media 1, we read through an extract of a passage written by N.Katherine Hayles entitled “Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognititve Modes”.

It compared and contrasted the difference between “Deep Attention” and “Hyper Attention” and the changing trends in our society where young people are leaning more towards the latter.

According to Hayles, Deep Attention is “characterized by concentrating on a single object for long perioids of time”, for example reading a novel or watching a movie without distractions.

To contrast Hayles describes Hyper Attention as “switching rapidly around different tasks” and seeking multiple stimuli at once, for example watching TV whilst also using a phone to surf the internet.

She, also raised the issue of the rising prevalence of Hyper Attention in young people and the ramifications of this in the education system.

We also discussed questions such as whether we saw ourselves as using Hyper or Deep attention: I would definitely say I usually engage in Hyper attention, switching between multiple steams of mental stimuli in normal life, however I am also capable of Deep Attention, when a particular object has engrossed my attention fully and I have no problem spending hours on the same piece of stimuli (given thats its interesting enough).

One thing I found interesting was that in the full passage of writing (from BlackBoard, not handed out in Class) was the comparisons to ADHD/ADD and the rising prevalence of the afflictions.

That concluded my first Blog entry. As I’m currently unaware of the expected length/tone/contents required, I expect all future posts to be better than this one.