There's an old aphorism that "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king." Cathy Davidson might well revamp that phrase to be "In the land of the attention blind, collaborators are king." And indeed, all of us ARE attention blind, as Davidson demonstrates in multiple ways throughout the book, since we pay attention to some things at the expense of others, often without even recognizing it. But while that insight itself isn't necessarily novel, Davidson's way of engaging with it often is. Rather than excoriate technology or youth culture or "reality TV" for compromising our attention, Davidson underscores the attention blindness is an inherent part of existence, positing it within a historic context stemming back to Socrates and positioning it as an opportunity to redefine the realities of our modern world, individually and collectively, to better reflect what we value and aspire to.
From infancy on, we are socialized about what matters, in ways that are often invisible to us, as Davidson incisively and accessibly depicts through a "case study" of infant Andy. Attention blindness can not be avoided--no one's cognitive capacity can encompass everything--but we can be more conscious about what we choose to attend to, and Davidson provides many helpful tips and tools for so doing. Davidson wants learning to be a verb when it is too often a noun. And she advocates for the importance of unlearning, which may in fact be harder than learning yet is necessary to prepare us for future possibilities.
While one of the frequent concerns about the digital world is that it isolates us behind screens-- scrolling through the Facebook postings of "friends" rather than spending face-to-face time with friends, and leading to increased isolation and egocentrism. Davidson underscores the degree to which technology can unite us and, by making possible unprecedented access to others, can enable us to collaborate in ways that overcome individual oversights through collectivity.
She aptly notes that "multi-tasking" has become a prominent verb in modern life, and an equally prominent complaint, leading to a perpetual state of partial attention that many fear is at the expense of deep thought. Davidson reframes multitasking as being about distribution rather than distraction. Rather than think of continuous partial attention as a bane, we can consider it a boon in equipping us for flourishing in an increasingly digital world, and as an essential, adaptive mode for the twenty-first century in which everything links to everything else in an interconnected network of networks, providing access that is empowering and can lead to greater efficiencies, especially if we partner with others who compensate for what we miss in our partiality.
Furthermore, she debunks the idea of mono-tasking as being a myth--our brains are inherently inquisitive. They crave activity and engagement, and in fact internal distractions supercede external during any given hour at work. An astonishing 80 percent of our neural energy is taken up not by external distractions at all but by the mind talking to itself. Even when we're engaged in reading a long book, our minds drift about 25% of time. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Davidson references a researcher who has found that more of the areas of the brain light up when a person is daydreaming than when the same person is engaged in a concentrated task. Remote parts of the brain "talk" to one another in those down times, and it's about twenty times more active than when it's being stimulated from outside, which is pretty positive. And, perhaps counterintuitively, she reveals that the brain uses far less energy when it's multitasking than if it's in a deep, meditative state.
Overall Davidson neither valorizes nor vilifies the implications of the internet on attention but rather reminds us that the Internet is still in its adolescence--which explains its awkwardness!--and that most of us haven't figured out the best ways to engage in the digital world. She encourages us to consider new digital ways of thinking not as multitasking but multi-inspiring, as eliciting potentially creative disruption of usual thought patterns that can lead to new insights. Rather than resist or resent digital realities, she encourages us to relish them, providing a chance to re-envision school practices to equip young people for very different labor realities of the 21st century AND to re-envision work practices to increase effectiveness and satisfaction of workers while increasing productivity.
The disconnect between our digital lives and our daily lives as they play out in school or work tends to be too stark, and perhaps at the root of increasing rates of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and the attention "deficits" most of us suffer from in some capacity and yet which Davidson astutely insinuates may be more about institutional rather than individual inadequacies.
Promoting interdisciplinariness and cross-fertilizations of all kinds can help. Deepening and differentiating instruction and assessment beyond the standardized practices of yore can help. Being mindful of attention and distraction (a cue to consciousness!) and managing your time with intentionality (digital holidays!) can help. The Internet provides an unprecedented opportunity to think and work in a more networked way; the question is whether our institutions, and the entrenched thinking that can is willing to evolve in response to such opportunities.
Davidson denaturalizes schooling by depicting how we came to have the schools we have, and how reflective they were of the values and needs of the Industrial Age in which they were created. Yet they have not evolved to reflect the Information Age in which we currently live or, better yet, the Age that lies ahead of us. Far from needing to preserve the status quo, there is all but uniform agreement that our schools need to evolve, and yet an enormous inability to do so systemically.
Is another world possible? One of the things that has been most effective about the current Occupy Wall Street movement is the degree to which it's shaken the public--and The Establishment --from our relative attention blindness and tacit acceptance of the vast, unacceptable inequalities. Making Now You See It required reading for leaders and educators from kindergarten through college would be a great way to agitate against inertia in education, and might just inspire an Occupy Education movement....
Some thoughts and questions on my mind after reading Now You See It.
*How can we capitalize on what works about, say, game design and incorporate effective such as instant and continuing feedback and progressive challenges into spheres of formal learning?
*Much as George Bush infamously noted that he wouldn't want to hire anyone for his administration who didn't cross-train (if only he'd been unwilling to hire anyone who didn't have a brain, or a heart), Davidson urges that we would do well to embrace cognitive cross-training--interconnected neural training activities that help minimize attention blindness, assist in multitasking, and promote collaboration by difference.
*Encouraging, rather than discouraging, mind-wandering might turn out to be exactly what we need to encourage more of in order to accomplish the best work in a global, multimedia digital age.
*Despite well-known recommendations of repetition being the key to learning (which is certainly an important element), Davidson underscores that "what surprises the brain is what allows for learning. Incongruity, disruption, and disorientation may well turn out to be the most inspiring, creative, and productive forces one can add to the workplace." Figuring out how to tap into these productively within classrooms is challenging, but worth exploring further.
I recommend Now You See It to anyone concerned about the future of learning--and the future overall!
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Not a satisfying read
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