Attention and Television

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of media to distract, and reading Maggie Jackson’s “Distracted.” I talked in an earlier post about not liking to wear headphones in public, partly because it keeps me from attending to the environment around me. Something then made me think of television. I grew up, for the most part, without television. Overseas we didn’t get a TV until I was eight or nine (every other year we'd spend a summer in the States, camped in front of the TV part of the time at least) and all we had was a small black and white TV on which we watched programs on AFRTS (Armed Forces Radio and Television) in Seoul. Though we had a TV from then on, our choices were rather limited.

In any case, what prompted this post was not a memory of TV growing up (and I’ve got enough anecdotes about that for later) but about TV when I went to college in San Antonio. My roommate and I did not have a TV and I don’t recall if our suitemates did. This was before the days when all the dorms were wired for cable TV (or internet access). I remember at the time being glad for not having a TV because I didn’t think I would get a single thing done if I had one. TV watching is sometimes a choice, but sometimes it’s a pull (something Jackson mentions in research of small children and TV: often they look at the TV not because they want to, but because their attention is pulled by the TV and its bright flickering pictures and funny noises). I tend to get pulled into TV, and find it hard to do anything else when it’s on—it’s got my attention. I remember one Friday night hanging out in a friend’s room where they had a large TV. We turned it on and, literally, the next thing I remember it was after midnight. Though we must have had some conversation, for the most part the evening was lost to the TV (and not for anything particularly interesting). It was something of a small shock to me and reaffirmed the fact that I was glad not to have one.

When I see dorms today, wired for cable and the internet, I wonder how they get anything done, how they concentrate, how they find long stretches of uninterrupted time to read, reflect, rework drafts of assignments—all the hard work of being a student. When I used to run my no media week in my classes at Clemson (students in my media class were to avoid any form of mass media for an entire week unless required for class or work—no TV, radio, CDs, films, magazines, etc.—and write diaries of the experience), some students would comment how they used to have trouble balancing all their classwork and finding time to get it done. I recall one student saying that they managed to get through all their weeks reading and work and starting reading ahead, and it was only Tuesday. Another student once said during that week, she could actually hear herself think, and felt less confused about things. These are anecdotes, individuals, nonrepresentative sample sets. But they have stayed with me.

I’m not saying that students need to live a monastic life, just that it would help. Being a student should be about time to learn and contemplate new ideas and information, and one needs less distraction to do so. For many students, especially my students here at ASU who work and have families and commute to school, they don’t have that luxury of time—life is distracting enough. I worry that our new mediated environment will make it harder and harder for students to really think (when they get the time free from work and family). No wonder they complain that they want clear bullet points in lecture that have a direct correlation to the test. Memorize some facts, learn some skills, pass the test and get your degree. You can do that fairly well in a distracting environment. There’s a place for that. But we’re losing a place for the other.

iPod Touch

So, I wanted to try out a device with mobile media and connectivity. I have a cell phone, so didn’t need another one of those. But I wanted to test out multimedia consumption in public space—music, video, and other functions—and if possible something with a WiFi connection. The iPod Touch seemed the trick. I keep wanting to call it the iTouch for some reason.

Now, a few years ago I had a Palm Zire which I used for about a year. I loaded some pictures on it (it had a built in camera, too). But primarily I used it as a mini laptop to take notes on. With a nifty mini folding keyboard that could attach to it, I could create and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. I used it to take notes at conferences, mainly. The problem was…well, one of the problems was that the power button was really awkward and easily depressed so the thing would accidentally get turned on without me knowing and the battery would drain. And if the battery went, anything not backed up went and you had to re-set the entire device. The other problem was that when I wasn’t traveling, I didn’t have much use for it. I found handwritten notes more comfortable and dynamic. Eventually it sat on my desk in my office until the battery drained and I never reset it.

6 May, 2009
I head into the Apple store at the Arizona Biltmore Shopping mall. It’s a well-lit place, and quite crowded, though half the people in there seem to be employees. I’m greeted at the front of the store, I state my business (“I want to buy an iTouch”) and am free to wander for about 10 seconds until one of my greeters is assigned to me as a personal shopper and off we go to the iPod touch table. Since I’m not a heavy duty user of such devices currently, and don’t forsee becoming so, I’m not looking for a huge amount of memory and opt for the 8 gig model (I’m reminded at these times that I once owned a PC with an amazing 40 megs of memory, and had lots of room to spare on it). Not too pricey as these things go, though the peripherals are shockingly expensive (a hard case to protect it costs about 10% of the price of the device itself; then there’s antiglare film, etc. I finally hand over my credit card and am delivered a few minutes later a quite small clear plastic box (about 2 inches by 4 inches).

I start exploring this little box later that afternoon during my childrens’ gymnastics class. I manage to open the box, but cannot figure out how to free the iPod itself from its holder. This is somewhat humbling. Eventually I discover the clear tape holding it in place.

Meanwhile, since I cannot fiddle with the device itself, I manage to look over the product information guide, printed in what appears to be 2-point font. Squinting, I look over the basic guidelines. These boil down to two central commandments:
· Don’t be stupid with this device (drop, open, crush, bend, shred, paint, etc.)
· Don’t get it wet (no iPodding in the rain), and if it gets wet, don’t stick it in the microwave to dry it (really!)

There are a couple of more commandments, too:
· Don’t drive and listen on a headset (I knew this one already, though many people I pass on the road these days obviously don’t, or are ignoring the law)
· Don’t study the map feature while driving

I then turn to the section on warnings and find myself so frightened by the end that I wonder that they let this thing on the market. Potential hazards of using this device include:
· Hearing damage (“turn the volume down if you can’t hear people speaking near you”—but isn’t the point of an iPod to ignore the people speaking near you?)
· A few people may be susceptible to blackouts or seizures (“even if they have never had one before”). If you start twitching, convulsing, or have a “loss of awareness” see a doctor.
· The glass screen may shatter and cut you
· Repetitive motion strain
· Don’t set the iPod on the airbag in your car since the airbag could open with great force and….
· Watch out for the RF energy of the device, especially if you have a pacemaker, and it may interfere with other electronic systems (like in vehicles).

That’s the gist, at any rate. The entire document (or a version of them) is here.

It's sort of like listing all the possible side effects of a medication, no matter how rare. The chances of any of this happening are extremely slim, but reading through them all at one sitting makes me consider the device askance.

WiFi Envy

Thinking about a new technological assemblage where we’re encouraged to keep in touch all day, every day, with always on connections to our friends and the internet, has made me review my own information access habits, especially email. Though I receive a fair amount of email a day, it is far from overwhelming and rarely is there an item that mandates an immediate response. When I have access to a computer at home or in the office, I check email frequently. Partly this is because email is on a random reward schedule (which means that we hit the feedbar more often since we can’t predict when the reward will come) and email (just like regular mail) is pure potential—you never know what’s coming and it may be wonderful. But mainly checking email is way to pass time. It’s a distraction from what I need to do. Now, I can very easily distract myself, thank you very much (“you know, that one quote would be perfect here. I must dash to the library to dig up that volume right now in the middle of this sentence” or “Coffee? Sure!” or “Gee those shelves look dusty” or “I wonder if the mail is in?”), and I don’t need more.

However, I do admit to a certain WiFi envy, mainly when I’m in meetings and I glance over and note someone scrolling through their messages. WiFi is a lot like cigarettes. Cigarettes give people an excuse to leave, Blackberries and WiFi devices give one something else to do while seeming to attend (my students do this to me all the time). There have been two times in my life when I’ve been tempted to start smoking. The first was when I was working the late shift at a neighborhood submarine sandwich shop in Wisconsin, bored out of my mind and looking for something, anything, to do. The second was sitting in an all day retreat and watching with envy as the smokers in the group would excuse themselves and step outside for periods of time.

So while I can see where a WiFi enabled device could make me more productive (as if that’s the key criterion I want to base my life on), I have my doubts.