ATTENTION RETENTION IN THE TWITTER/TEXTING AGE

Hey faculty members: What are we going to do about the increasingly short attention span of our students? Having taught at Tulane now for about a decade, I cannot help but notice the shift in interest levels among our students.

I frequently teach a media ethics class in which I change the material every semester depending on what is happening in politics, government, world events, the media industries and more. I do this because I built the class in a way that allows me to teach ancient moral philosophies in the context of modern media coverage of current events. For years it has worked beautifully because the students often relate to what is immediately in front of them. For example, this semester, when I teach the unit on privacy and media, I can bring into the mix new technology that makes data mining so much easier and sneakier than it used to be. But I have also gone so far as to use pop culture to engage the students. Recently a popular hip hop singer, Chris Brown, was accused of domestic abuse toward his girlfriend, pop star Rihanna. Media coverage of this event has been quite intrusive, and privacy has not been a consideration. With student attention spans declining and pop culture media peaking, it seems like a no brainer to me that sometimes you bring the mountain to Mohammed.

There would be those out there (even among you, possibly) who would see this as a dumbing down of academia. I disagree. My goal today is the same as it was 10 years ago – to convey information to the students that causes them to think critically and practice moral reasoning. That’s what teaching ethics is really all about. If I have to use rappers and pop stars to get my point across, why not?

I have often said that education is having a hard time keeping up with the breakneck pace at which technology is advancing. Why, for example, do we still have overhead projectors in so many classrooms? Probably because many teachers are still comfortable using the same equipment and teaching methods that worked for them in 1989.

However, that is a minor issue compared to misunderstandings some of us may have about how our students’ minds operate. Our students are all about text messaging and Twitter. For those not Twitter-savvy, here is all you need to know: It is a messaging system that allows the user to send message of only 140 characters. (To give you some idea how short a Twitter message has to be, the preceding sentence is exactly 140 characters long.) Our students operate on brevity. Most cell phones, for example, will not allow you to send a text message from your carrier to a competing carrier that is longer than 160 characters. (The preceding sentence is exactly 160 characters long.)

So, I ask you: If we have students who operate on 140- 160 character communiqués, how can we realistically expect them to sit through classes that last almost three hours? If you are routinely noticing that glazed look that comes over some of your students, you are not alone. I believe the key to making a college class run like a well-oiled machine is multiple stimuli and interactivity. And if that sounds like the same things that hold your attention when you visit your favorite web site, it is not a coincidence. We are in the digital world. Things must move rapidly, substantively and imaginatively. Standing in one spot lecturing endlessly does not an engaging class session make in 2009.

With that in mind, please drum up five minutes and 47 seconds of attention to listen to what one lecturer at the University of Sidney had to stay about holding students’ attention:

I would like us to start a dialogue about this topic. Please comment on this post and share your ideas about attention retention. It is a topic that matters now more than ever before. What are your thoughts?