Attention Must Be Paid

Continuous partial attention and multitasking are subject that have popped up here previously.

Continuous partial attention occurs when someone doesn't pay attention to any one thing continuously, but pays partial attention to lots of different stuff. Most of us have talked with someone who's checking email or texting while engaged in our conversation. Drives me nuts, but that's another story. For more, see Linda Stone on continuous partial attention.

But what if you wanted to educate these multitaskers on the metaskill of paying attention? And I don't mean just forcing them to put down the Blackberry, but really develop a new attentional skill. I think that would be particularly hard with people who have grown up with Internet, WiFi, texting, video games or whathaveyou.

Howard Rheingold, a writer-turned-teacher, took on the challenge with college kids who had signed up for his course on social media. He seems to take it very seriously, having the class delve into the subject of attention before even addressing the class's subject. What I like most about his approach is telling the kids to notice where their attention goes as things unfold in the class.

Were you tempted to check email or read RSS feeds as the video played?