continuous partial attention @ MIT

christine yen CMS.400

where were you, when...

po14.mit.edu went down?

4000+ MIT community members lost access to email?

one of the five mail servers pumping email through MIT cut off users from our primary mode of communication?

email = MIT lifeblood

• inundated with mailing list spam since day one• accustomed to email as our primary form of

publicity• constantly checking email due to the nonstop

influx of email from friends, clubs, dorms, etc.

we are...

MIT...• makes it easy to always stay connected (wireless

everywhere, Athena clusters)• maintains overall information-heavy atmosphere

now add on the extras

beyond email – consider IMs, texting, RSS feeds, laptops in classrooms...

how many of you are “multitasking” through this presentation right now?

we like to call this...

CONTINUOUS PARTIAL ATTENTION (CPA)

is CPA bad? ...hardly!

MIT's fast-paced, information-heavy atmosphere

+

our culture's shift toward communications technology + social networking to bring

people together

=

a real need for and real benefit from being able to process lots of attention “threads”

so is it just MIT?

– 51% of Gen Next respondents sent/received a text message in the 24 hours before being interviewed, compared to 26% of ages 26-40.

– 54% of Gen Nexters have used one or more social networking site, and 44% have profiles.

– 88% of respondents believe email and new communications technology have helped American workers rather than hurt them

In a study by the Pew Research Center on “Generation Next,” or Americans 18-25 years old, surveyers found that...

for the future

technology is only going to increase the ability to be constantly connected

for example – one of the “next big things” being planned for browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer is offline browsing and content

mobile content is on the rise (think transmedia / multimedia experiences expanding on Lost, or Heroes)

takeaway: CPA = GOOD

not a negative “dependence” on the communications technology

perpetual connectivity contributes to everything that builds the MIT environment – the fact that there's always something to do

continuous partial attention is a way of life for students today