The human attention span is so astounding yet so small. Even when we think we are processing everything in our sight, we really are not. There simply is just too much information going on for our brains to process all at once. Selective attention is the way we are able to receive and understand the little amount of information our brain thinks is important. This selectiveness causes our brain to not notice other things going on around us. Missing these details could be very dangerous. For example, if you are playing music in headphones while you study, you will probably forget that you are even listening to music. This is because your brain has shifted its focus from listening to the songs to reading and studying your notes. Although attention seems like a natural occurrence that does not take much effort, there actually is effort on our part. We have to select an area to focus on and continue to focus on it so our brains can soak in the information and turn it into stuff that makes sense.
A time I can remember when my selective attention almost caused me great injury, was in my car. I remember driving down a dark creepy road covered in woods after leaving my friend’s house (also in creepy dark woods). Because I was by myself, I was getting scared. I decided to call my friend, so I felt less alone. Our conversation shifted from me driving and being scared to drama our friends were fighting about in our group chat. I finally approached the main road, still on the phone with her. I was so distracted by my phone call that when I turned onto the main road, I ran a red light. I was so confused because I didn’t even notice it was red. All I said to her was, “OMG I just ran a red light and I have no idea why. I wasn’t thinking.” After hearing about this lesson, it automatically made me think of this time. It makes sense now why I didn’t notice the light was green. My selective attention was on my conversation with my friend and that was the only information my brain could handle then. I almost felt like I went missing for a split second while I drove through it because I was so focused on my phone call. It seemed like I didn’t need to put effort into driving because I thought since I was “looking” I could “see,” but turns out I didn’t see shit!