Can Technology Extend Our Attention Spans?

If the lifeblogging movement is to become pervasive in our society, our best scientific minds had better be hard at work on expanding the human attention span.
It’s no accident that the term “attention deficit disorder” wasn’t coined until 1980 by the American Psychiatric Association.
That’s not to say that there weren’t individuals who prior to 1980 exhibited traits that [...]

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Links mentioned in this pitch: American Journalism Review’s Newslink and Radio-Locator.

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Are we really so concerned with saving a few dollars here and there that we’re willing to give up large amounts of privacy? That’s one of the interesting questions that Professor Halavais raises in his latest lecture.
Monitoring how fast we drive, what kinds of foods we eat …  there is no denying that some of [...]

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The epiphany that I got from reading Rheingold’s passage about “smart mobs”  was how sad it is that a balance can’t be struck between the advantages associated with how many in the rest of the world use mobile phones equipped Internet and real, in-person interactive communications.
As we continue to struggle to get personal computers into [...]

Continue reading about The ‘Always On’ Culture? What A Turn-Off… »

Anybody remember the old late 1960’s/early 1970’s television program, “Love American Style” ?
For those of you who don’t, each show had three short stories about people trying to find love, or getting into funny predicaments associated with romance and dating. Each story with in the show had different actors and while some actors made repeat [...]

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While it may seem like I’m equivocating or rationalizing, I really have a difficult time accepting any interpretation of ethics that S. Baase touches upon in one of the readings for Module 6.  A lot of what Baase discusses (especially the theories of Immanuel Kant, the famed German philosopher) doesn’t allow for a fair amount [...]

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Okay, I know our friend Dan Greenberg is not a blogger. But after reading about his viral video strategies,  it was encouraging to hear this Marketplace report on new federal guidelines for certain types of bloggers.

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I hate to nit pick, but it really bothered me that David Kelly’s video ignored a key component of human centered design: Curiosity.
Let me explain. When Kelly dons the headband with the scrolling electronic  message on it, we don’t get close up until the very end of his remarks. He tells a joke, mentions the [...]

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 A. Cooper’s ”The inmates are running the asylum”  is filled with empathy for those who find badly designed technology confounding. He admirably raises the issue of the implications that are associated with a society that requires computer literacy (or a close approximation) in order to be considered employable.
“Politicians may demand jobs for the underprivileged, but if [...]

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Had thought about a blog entry regarding Robert Moses, but somebody beat me to the punch. Moses was a complex man, with capacity for both good and evil.
 Old TV News Guy’s observations were spot on, which compelled me to offer the following response…..

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