Distract... ed?

I am reading In Defense Of Distraction. Only on page 2 of 8, but the interviewer just asked, "Are we living through a crisis of attention?"

Expert on multitasking and the brain, David Meyer, responded:

“Yes,” he says. “And I think it’s going to get a lot worse than people expect.” He sees our distraction as a full-blown epidemic—a cognitive plague that has the potential to wipe out an entire generation of focused and productive thought. He compares it, in fact, to smoking. “People aren’t aware what’s happening to their mental processes,” he says, “in the same way that people years ago couldn’t look into their lungs and see the residual deposits.”

What an incredible analogy. It has me questioning how I use all the modern tools I do - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog, Delicious, flikr, iLike, Myspace, comment discussions all over the web, and my phone thrown into the mix. What is the best way to use them? Do some people have higher ability to use more and get value? What are the brains "attention rules" that need to be followed in order to learn most effectively?

OK, back to reading...

The Customized Life

I am sure this is not a new idea - I have not checked. I was thinking about the five eras of the social web by Jeremiah Owyang, specifically in our reading materials.

What if when you read a book/magazine/periodical in a digital format (like online or downloaded for a Kindle) the book changed based on your profile? I am 99% sure someone must have already begun work on this, but bear with me.

Let's say I buy a mystery novel for reading on my browser or iPhone. When I buy it, it accesses my profile info information. Then before and while I read, the content would actually morph so that the story's city was in my city (the weather, current news in my area, etc.), the love interest's traits would change to my personal preferences in a love interest, the style of music played by the protagonist matched my favorites while the villain listened to Rush Limbaugh.

When I read the world news it would use my job, hobbies, and family makeup to make its story content connect to my personal life and present/future situation, and use my past experiences to make stories relatable to me by using familiar schema I would understand.

My individual preferences would be stored in some sort of hyper-detailed personal online profile that I would update like I do my auto fill information in a Google toolbar. Of course, there are many people who would be scared of volunteering such personal information into the cloud, but there are constantly more and more people who will volunteer this information, and it is already happening more on social media sites.

I'd probably do it. It would be so cool to see a protagonist have the same circumstances as me - a completely relatable read. Weaving the reader's details into their pre-written work would be a technical and artistic challenge of syntax finesse from this new breed of authors. Maybe the reader/user could select the level of 'match' that the story would make with one's personal life. Is the story in your very neighborhood or just somewhere in your state? Is someone you know kidnapped or just vaguely familiar to a past friend? That would all be a part of the fun.

I wonder what it will do the the lines of reality and virtual. "Last night, that dream I had, was it based on something that happened in my real life or in the story I was reading? Both? Wait... am I supposed to call someone or was that just...?"

Yeah, I'd definitely do it.

Backchannels and Surface Levels

The level of conversational depth with which we engage each other is on my mind today.

First backchannels. In case you are not familiar with them, they are a chat room where audience members at a seminar can chat and interact with each other while the speaker/panel is presenting. Jennifer Wagner has a post and comments here that I like.

My initial impression after being in several backchannels was that it was really neat. I could talk and participate with people who were interested in the same topic I was. It was exactly like being able to turn to the person next to me and talk about what I was seeing in a movie or TV show.

But then I thought, "Wait, I almost NEVER do that with my actual live voice during a movie, play, or TV show." I consider it respectful to the creators/presenters of the content to wait until afterwards to have that conversation. Furthermore, I hate it when people start talking to each other when I am trying to watch a show or listen to a speaker. So what was I doing in these backchannels? Were they just a way to disengage from being a listener to a degree, to tune out of the presentation so I could tune into a place where I could talk?

In 2009 versus 1999, there are more available outlets to be a talker. Blogs, video blogs, podcasts, profile pages, and all sorts of social media give us ways to broadcast our messages, our personalities, and our thoughts into the public setting, even if the public never hears it. Nobody has the time to read 99.999999% of the world's content. Most blogs (like this one) get zero comments per post. Some people may read it, but why take the time to comment when there are so many other things to go read? The onslaught of Information Overload is more prevalent now than ever, and most people talking will not be heard most of the time.

What does it all mean? I don't think this Rise Of The Talker is all-in-all a bad thing. I, like many, enjoy having more options available to me to hone in on specific authors, musicians, and content generators than ever before. But in this long tail, I see more people getting left to speak to nobody, versus listening to somebody.

Are long-form presentations and speeches are in decline in favor of more immediately conversational dynamics (e.g. chat and social media versus e-mail)? Are verbal listening attention spans shortening? Are youth learning how to communicate points faster, in shorter-form than what I grew up able to do? or are they just in a more manic communication landscape where deeper meanings are present but not as often learned due to social influences?