Attention, attention

Electronic devices are practical, efficient, and necessary for work and play today. I believe it is important to remember what it was like living without them at least as a historical reference, and the professional use of the emerging technologies needs to surpass the expected applications of it.

For the last three decades, Sesame Street has controlled the attention of generations of children with single themes broken down into minute long segments.  Capitalizing on expected commercials, the whole show was brought to you by the letter “M” and the number “3”.  Most of the show was about M and 3. Now the attention span for those using the Internet, or listening to politicians say something important, is 250 milliseconds, according to ABC News. We want a murder investigation on CSI to be completed in 50 minutes or less.  The ton of information available via government computer files most of us can’t get, as seen on NCIS, for potential suspects on the large screen in seconds. We want to know now, the faster the better, and more of it.

There was a recent TV show that named the top 100 gadgets in the last 100 years or so.  Elements such as the microphone and others were in the top device, the Smartphone. It has a battery, a microphone for the phone component. But what about the device being a bank, a calculator, a flashlight, a clock and alarm, a musical instrument, a map, a place to listen to music and watch TV or movies, and of course, who talks when texting is the best thing since e-mail?  Programs will make a spoken word into music, and my website has a link to an instant poem.  I used to carry a camera around, but who needs it when there is a digital device still and video camera on the smart phone?  All this is cool, and to some born yesterday, the way it always was.

But I still have a film camera or two, and have maps in my car. I like going to the movies and seeing the big screen for some movies.  If I could write music, I would probably prefer real guitar or piano. This is the reference point of how it used to be when people had wrist watches, which first had military uses- so pilots with biplanes could tell time without pulling out a pocket watch.  But since digital cameras make privacy an impossibility (and not just for the Hollywood celebs), those who make a living taking photographs need to surpass the new standard use of the emerging technology with s style of creativity.  I remember in the photo classes I took, that Ansell Adams waited, studied and observed the light and shadows in different weather conditions before he drove his truck to the exact spot to make the photo of the landscape on a bellows camera using an 11 x 14 glass plate.  I have a book of some of those photos.

Music can be made electronically, but not as dated as the original MOOG synthesizer.  Technology can imitate the past and can create hybrid music.  Artists can use the technology to go beyond the canvas and the clay, but the Oreo art from the crème centers I saw on TV this weekend was different.  Professional writers need to go beyond the plug in the word instant poems and story formulas to be better than the rest of the instant 250 millisecond expectations of a Sesame Street generation.  Reading a book on an electronic device is expected and the best way to get 1000’s of books instantly at your fingertips.  However, when I read a real paperback book (if and when I have time to read more than a newspaper) the batteries won’t wear out if the novel stays on the corner of my desk for a few days with a mere paper bookmark where I left off.

Learn 10 ways how you can harness the Power of Words with modern technology.