Attention Span

In his book "Playing the Future" Douglass Rushkoff has an interesting take on attention spans. The common complaint is that kid's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. Rushkoff sees this as a higher form of taking in information. He says that while they may have a shorter attention span they have a broader attention span.

In other words they have the ability to take in information and make sense of it much faster than many adults. They don't need to see a 30 minute TV show in order to understand it. While an adult will take 30 minutes to watch one show to gain underestanding a kid can watch three different shows simultaneously and get what is going on in all three. He also thinks that kids know intuitively when to switch channels from one show to another so that they capture the important parts of each story.

Part of the way they are able to do this is because they understand the use of icons. What they are doing with these TV shows is turning them into the equivalent of 3 frame comic strips. From those 3 or 4 frames they get the story and figure out everything in between. Everyone knows that a light bulb over someone's head in a comic strip means that person has an idea. How they got that idea is something you have to imagine. Rushkoff says that kids look for similar, though much more subtle, icons in tv shows and that helps them fill out the story. To actually have to sit and watch it all is boring.

I'm not sure about this yet but I'm leaning towards agreeing with him. To my mind one of the stupidest things around are Pokemon cards. I simply do not understand them. However, my 10 year old son and 6 year old daughter can spout off for hours about them. No matter how hard I try I simply cannot figure out what they are talking about. Apparently different cards have different powers. But those powers are "neutralized" depending on the numerous combinations of other cards in play. How they know and keep track of it all is totally beyond me. As Wesley the farm boy would say, "A truly dizzying intellect."