Michael Newman brings up a lot of new ideas to me through his article. He notes how attention span of children are constantly changing, and how those changes affect and change the way people act today.
One aspect of Newman’s article that really popped out to me was the purpose of the Sesame Street. I did not know that Sesame Street or other children’s televisions programs were formatted in such a way that appealed to their low attention spans. Yet it so clear to how the different segments, constant changing of characters, and the audience engaging aspects of the show constantly keep a child’s mind entertained with a new topic.
Additionally, Newman flowed flawlessly into his next topic of discussing how today’s society is a “snack culture”. Which means we don’t prefer to sit down and watch and consume long entire programs, such as feature length films and reading books, but instead society is turning to quick On Demand content such as YouTube. Online media archives such as YouTube allows people to watch what they want, when they want, simply and easily.
I never looked at how our media has changed with our attention span. Newman made is clear to me how this happened. But it only makes sense for things to change with the times.
-Jossshhuaa
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ReplyDeleteHey Joshua, I agree with you that I never knew Sesame street were formatted in such a way that appealed to their low attention spans. I just always thought they come up with new topics all the time since even being an adult myself, I get bored quickly if someone always talk about the same topic over and over again. Media played a huge influence with our attention span. I think most movie trailer always put the most interesting part of the movie to capture our attention. It is amazing how much media can influence us with every little thing.
ReplyDeleteThat is an interesting article. I think television in general does that. You always have commercials that interrupt a child's attention. Also, television programs are usually only a half hour long. This trains the brain to pay attention only for that period of time before it begins to wander. I also think it's interesting that teachers blamed Sesame Street for children misbehaving.
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