There is probably nothing more frustrating than having an inattentive audience. Yet, every one of us is an audience to the next person. Even more worrisome, most of us are inattentive audiences for one another, and we seem to be becoming more so every day!
Human beings, being the social creatures that we are, thrive on getting the others in our specie to pay us some level of attention at almost all times, especially during communication. The irony of it is that communication, a human skill that requires some level of mindfulness by the parties involved in it, is where our attention is now lacking most.
In this same world, many are complaining of having a short memory span, while neglecting their obvious short attention span.
They are complaining of learning things only to forget it minutes after while ignoring they didn’t pay attention to its learning.
Attention is the currency of learning and communication, and it is a big channel path to memory formulation, and yet, people don’t recognize the importance of paying attention to their attention!
This is a serious matter. Serious enough that it has become a problem of concern among professionals and educators at all levels.
In 2015, Microsoft carried out a study[1] to investigate this problem, and it claimed that since the year 2000, “the average attention span dropped from 12 seconds to eight seconds.”
4 seconds difference doesn’t seem like much, but when this is spread over thousands of hours of communication time that have gone by between those years, it is a pointer that several man-hours of communication have been wasted – people have been literally communicating with “nobody” for a significant part of that time while they actually thought they have someone else’s attention and communication is going on!
What could have been the source of distraction between the years 2000 and 2015 that must have stolen the attention of such a mass of people at the same time? We think the culprit is not far off: It is more than likely to have been the digital revolution and the arrival of smart devices.
You Can Now Guess Why The Teachers Are Complaining Too
Our teachers probably wouldn’t have taken notice of this or even consider it a serious problem until a clear connections between students’ attention span and their ability to remember what was taught in class begins to show, either in the short term or long term.
If we are classroom teachers too, maybe this article would sound angrier than this – There are angrier comments regarding the attention problem on the internet from teachers.
Teachers’ work are most effective when their students pay attention to what they are teaching. That is almost the only physical guarantee for the teacher that what is being taught is being understood, and will ultimately be remembered.
But the state of the classrooms of today has been affected by students’ digital lifestyles. It is a lifestyle that usually directs students’ attention away from not only their peers but their class. It is now normal for students to bring their smartphones to class, and this takes their attention completely away from what is being taught, while also adding a bigger burden in classroom management for the teacher.
This is a lot different from what schooling was like before the year 2000, and is the reason why that post-2000 Microsoft study is a micro truth that represents a bigger truth, and a potentially bigger problem for the society, plus the learning and memory formulation of the people in it.
Can We All Excite The Astrocytes?
As if to vindicate the lamentation of teachers that are herding absent-minded students, and professionals that have been recruiting forgetful employees, new research from MIT have discovered we are largely responsible for our own memory problems, especially forgetfulness.
What MIT researchers discovered was actually a neural circuit in the brain “that helps us build long lasting memories.” [2] The not-too-surprising attribute of this neural circuit is that it only appears to work when we are paying attention!
How?
These brain cells, described by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as astrocytes, “sends messages to the visual cortex that they should respond strongly to whatever they are seeing” [3].
The meaning of this is that one way or the other, we are responsible for commanding our brain to remember and record some things for long term memory storage, but that command is only activated by paying attention!
A problem known is half solved.
It is now known that a neural circuit (that can greatly improve our ability to remember stuffs) that works only when we pay attention is already hardwired into our brains. To tap into this potential, we only need to solve our existing attention problems, then we will automatically start firing up our astrocytes.
But, oh, how can we solve our attention problems first?
There are several ways to do this, and it’s going to constitute the bulk of this article.
1. Get Ready to Pay Attention/Have An Optimistic Mindset
Most of our attention problems arise because we fail to prepare for them.
Our lack of preparation manifests in several ways. One of them is our lack of punctuality.
Many of us arrive at our meetings, classes and discussions late, and because of that, take a long time (not to mention having a hard time) settling down and getting ourselves in tune with others. This is a usual impediment to paying attention to what is already on.
There is probably no successful endeavor that didn’t start out with adequate preparation. If we wish our communications at meetings, classes and discussions to turn out successfully, then being prepared to pay attention in them is a step in making it successful. And that step can be something as small as being punctual.
Another form of bad preparation towards improving our attention skills is having a pessimistic mindset about our own memory.
Many people having memory problems (which might be temporary) have already written their memory power off as weak and hopeless. Because of this, whenever they are in a setting where they are required to remember what they are learning or experiencing, they instead do not pay attention. Whereas paying attention is a gateway to forming memories.
The adoption of a more optimistic mindset towards our memory powers can be the fastest way to unlocking the powers of our attention.
2. Be a Good Listener
We have five senses, which probably means a fifth of everything we have ever learn comes from one of them. One of the most potent sense of learning is our sense of hearing, but unfortunately, most of us do not put our hearing to sufficient use.
We can hear, but we don’t listen. What an irony!
Hearing is easy, but listening is not difficult either. Listening is simply focusing on what we are hearing with the objective of understanding. [4]
Our listening abilities are a pathway to forming memories. But most of the time in our classes, meetings, and discussions, we are only half-listening.
Cultivating a good listening habit is an effective way to improve our memories. Yet, being a good listener can only be achieved by paying attention to what we are listening to.
A good listening habit is an indispensable skill in the field of learning. It is very safe to say there is a clear relationship between paying attention and learning by listening.
3. Don’t Allow Distractions
In striving to pay attention, distraction can come to us in two ways. But all these distractions should be avoided.
Firstly, distractions can be physical distractions coming from our immediate environment in the form of noise, movement, or adverse weather conditions. Physical distractions like these might not be preventable when they occur, which is why it is important to prepare ahead of their occurrence. In any situation where we hope we will put our memory to use i.e learn, we should block or remove all channels of physical distractions before they steal our attention away.
Distractions can also be in the form of what is called argumentative listening (or more broadly, “argumentative attention”). This is a situation where we pay attention only with the aim of arguing with our collaborator in communication, which might be the speaker or a book. Engaging in this makes us prone to spending our attention time mostly forming counter-arguments in our minds, which means that some parts of the discussion is never registered in our brain. While this is not wholly bad, it is a practice that should be avoided if we are trying to build ourselves a more attentive persona, and thus, a more alert memory.
4. Kill Your Internal Distractions
You daydream when you should be paying attention – That’s probably where your memory problem came from. Daydreaming is a kind of internal distraction.
It’s not bad to daydream, but when it’s so rampant it comes in the way of making us pay attention, it becomes a problem.
Some of us don’t daydream but rather engage in very deep thoughts that effectively shut us off from our immediate environment. If our immediate environment is where we need to learn, like a classroom, then having internal distractions like this is counterproductive.
The only solution is to listen. We should concentrate on what we are hearing or seeing and try as much as possible to understand them as they are happening. This will prevent our minds from dwelling over anything else within the period of learning, guaranteeing better attention and thus retention of what is being learnt.
Internal distraction is allowing non-related thoughts to take control of our minds when we should be paying attention.
It is possible to understand what is being learnt and allow thoughts to go on in our mind over it at the same time, this one is not an internal distraction.
5. Acknowledgment Works
Acknowledgment in communication is any action that shows the speaker that you are listening and paying attention to what is being said.
This can be as simple as nodding the head or actively following the speaker with your eyes.
Acknowledgement is a good tool for paying attention because it requires active input from you, which even if not genuinely done, can still help your attention in some way.
When you acknowledge a talk by asking questions for example, it shows you have been consciously following some part of the message that have influenced your question. For people that are chronically inattentive, acknowledgment might be the first step in gaining their attention back.
If we are to form long-lasting memories, it might help if we put ourselves in the scenes we are recording into our brains too. This is by making personal active input in the physical setting where our learning or communication is taking place. This might be in classes, meetings or discussions.
Asking questions or doing a recap is the fuller form of making an active input in a communication setting, but simply making positive sounds or nodding the head can be quite effective too. And this is what is called acknowledgment. It works.
6. In Extreme Cases, Tape Record
Making an audio or video record of proceedings of our communications with people (e.g tutors) with the aim of using it to aid recall is not a good idea for anyone who wants to improve their memory power. Using these devices may make us more dependent on them and make us mentally lazy.
However, in extreme cases, this is reasonable to do. An example is when the listener have another compulsory engagement to attend to while the communication is going on or if the listener fear physical or internal distractions will steal their attention away.
In all cases, it is always better to always ask for the permission of people before we make audio and video records of our communication proceedings with them.
Who knows? They might even volunteer to call our attention back if they observe it is drifting away, rather than have us recording them. And that’s definitely better.
Frequently Asked Questions on Proven Ways Paying Attention Has Been Used in Boosting The Memory
How can I pay more attention?
The first step is to be prepared to pay attention.
This can include adopting many lifestyle changes like arriving on time at meetings, classes, and discussions. This will ensure we settle in early and get ourselves in tune with what is going on.
Also, the adoption of a more optimistic mindset towards our memory powers can be the fastest way to unlocking the powers of our attention.
What does listening skill have to do with paying attention?
Having good listening skills is all about paying attention.
Being a good listener can only be achieved by paying attention to what we are listening to.
Take learning for example, a good listening habit is an indispensable skill in the field of learning. It is very safe to say there is a clear relationship between paying attention and learning by listening.
Can paying attention increase memory power?
Yes, paying attention is the surest way to register what you are observing in your mind. Observations can be done with any of our five senses i.e sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch.
We can learn and create memories from learning with any of our five senses.
References:
1. Microsoft study claims human attention span now lags behind goldfish – https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2015-05-microsoft-human-attention-span-lags.html (4-10-2019)
2. How attention helps you remember – news.mit.edu/2012/neuroscientists-shed-light-on-plasticity-0927 (4-10-2019)
3. Why Thinking About Paying Attention To Something Helps You Remember It – https://www.businessinsider.com/paying-attention-improves-memory-2012-9 (4-10-2019)
4. How to Practice Active Listening –
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-active-listening-3024343 (4-10-2019)
I am currently taking classes through my employer on highly technical material. The classes are taught remotely. I can chat text to the teacher and students but can’t see faces. There are detailed presentation slides.
I am struggling to pay attention to what the instructor is saying because I am too busy frantically copying the slides and trying to transcribe the verbal lecture.
I “hear” enough to type a transcription…but I don’t feel I’m absorbing the information.
The coursework uses mathematical reasoning that I did not learn in college and am self-teaching as I encounter it. I have significant anxiety about this, as I never considered myself “good” at math.
These lectures are recorded and I do have the ability to download the presentation in advance.
Do you have ideas for how I might spend less attention transcribing and more attention trying to understand the content? How to calm my anxieties about the difficulty and absorb what I can from the instructor?
I don’t think you can “spend less attention transcribing and more attention trying to understand the content” while you are actually trying to do both (and more) at the same time.
The average human brain is not wired to work that way.
As far as I can see, the only problem here is that you are multi-tasking. However, contrary to popular belief, multitasking is an inefficient way of getting things done.
Multitasking might appear like it allows you to get things done faster, but research suggests that it actually causes the brain to slow down overall.
And it wastes your power of attention.
I guess your most important goal is to “absorb what (you) can from the instructor?” To do this, you will have to give the understanding of what you are being taught the focus and attention it deserves (Do not do anything else while you are listening to the instructor).
As for the whole process, break the tasks down into distinct levels and complete one before moving to the next.
Why don’t you record the audio for later transcription? Listen to it first.
Transcribing clearly takes a secondary role in your case. But I understand that it is also a means for you to better understand the lecture. But, please, listen first, record and transcribe later.
The listening and the reading of your transcription are both distinct phases of your learning style.
Don’t ignore this. You should give each one a period of distinct focus and attention.
After all, whatever is worth doing is worth doing well.
I hope this helps.