“I guess I paid attention to the wrong things:/
the creamy empty space between the words,/
the silent edges of the textbook illustration,/
the worn lines along my teacher’s thick brown neck./
Still, I could re-draw them in my sleep.”
- Frank McCormick, Attention Deficit Disorder
“Whatever the case with AD/HD, there is little doubt that hyper attention is on the rise and that it correlates with an increasing exposure to and desire for stimulation in general and stimulation by media in particular.”
- Hayles, Hyper and Deep Attention
So I really enjoyed McCormick’s poem. It made me think of my presentation last week about autism, especially in the first line. The backslash at the end of every line was a very interesting way for the author to introduce a break between thoughts. I believe they were included to show that, in ADD, there is not necessarily a direct string of thoughts, but it is more like looking from one thing to another to find stimulation. The beginning of the poem brings up an interesting topic that I feel like most people don’t think about. Society views ADD and AD/HD as negative conditions. Society thinks that children with these ‘problems’ do not really take in anything from their environment and do not learn easily. While this may be true in the sense of book learning (as hinted to in McCormick’s poem), children with these conditions obviously can learn and absorb information. As McCormick says, ‘Still, I could re-draw them in my sleep’. As I discussed in my presentation about autism, there may be something that a ‘normal’ person could learn from this way of thought and this form of attention. People with autism, ADD, or AD/HD may see things that the average person wouldn’t see. If average people stopped to look at those things, they may learn a lot more than they already do. This could relate to literature as a whole, as well. However, this thought process should not be completely followed because it is apparent that those with ADD or AD/HD are missing other important things from their environment as well. I guess it just interests me as to WHY these abstract things (the spaces between words, for example, as stated in McCormick’s poem) are interesting to those with AD/HD. I mean, obviously the spaces between words would not be interesting to every single person with AD/HD, but why are those people attracted to those types of things and not interested in others?
I also was extremely interested in Hayles’ article. It was extremely relatable to me. My boyfriend was raised by media and literally spends most of his free time playing video games. His younger sister spends a large part of her free time watching TV to entertain herself. My sister and I, however, were raised by books. I mean, we did watch TV and played the occasional video game, but we spent most of our free time playing with each other and reading. My boyfriend and his sister are bored easily by the material they are learning in school, while my sister and I both thoroughly enjoy learning and the material presented to us. The article did sort of frustrate me though because it gave support for both deep attention and hyper attention. I definitely see the benefits of both, but I am very biased for the deep-attention side. I rarely get bored and I love that. I feel like it is beneficial for me to want to pay more attention to what I’m learning in school and less attention to stupid League of Legends and other assorted video games. I just feel like I would never want to be an air traffic controller or McDonald’s cashier, and I wouldn’t want that for my kids. I mean, those are both extreme cases of what people with hyper attention can do. I know that those that are more apt to hyper attention can do numerous jobs and could probably excel in most areas of the world. However, I feel like deep attention could be more beneficial in other areas of work. I know that I am totally biased, and that my boyfriend would probably feel the opposite way. I also know that of course, it would be best to have a balance right in the middle and that the question of whether deep attention or hyper attention is better will never really have a concrete answer. We have talked a lot in class about how media affects thought processes. It is quite clear that media exposure type and time affects how people think. I think that is a very interesting and scary concept. The last section in Hayles’ paper about how educational systems could be changed to fit society’s new shift toward hyper attention is also interesting and scary. For instance, the first example she gives about 14 large screens around the walls of a lecture hall providing extra stimulation while a speaker gives a presentation is very interesting. Yes, this would be beneficial to some people, but I know it would affect me negatively. Hayles’ explains that these screens could be used to search for material that is related to the presentation. I feel like I would want to pay full attention to the speaker so I don’t miss anything he or she is saying. Google jockeying can occur at home after the presentation has finished. As I said, I’m super biased. I don’t want to discount the benefits of hyper attention at all. I just feel like deep attention is much more beneficial when it comes to education. I would love for people to comment on this and let me know what they think about hyper attention vs. deep attention.
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