An important factor that affects our everyday lives is where we focus our attention. Are we focused on one thing at a time, or many things at a time? Trying to focus on many things at once can result in us not focusing on any one thing well. How much effort we put into our attention is also important. In other words, are we trying to focus and pay attention, or are we distracted by other things in our surroundings? While our brains are incredibly powerful, they can only allow us to process a little bit of information at a time from our environments. Selective attention allows us to focus in on something specific while blocking out other, less important, information. When a person experiences selective attention, it can be positive or negative. When selective attention allows a person to gather more details about the main subject, it is a positive experience. However, when selective attention prevents a person from gathering all the information necessary, it is a negative experience.
A friend of mine shared an example that illustrates attention, or lack thereof, from her work. She was attending a meeting with a large group of people that covered an important project that applied to everyone at the meeting to some degree. While my friend came to the meeting prepared to take notes with a pen and paper, almost everyone else brought their laptops. You would think this would be fine and shouldn’t create a problem, right? Unfortunately, that appears to have not been the case for everyone. My friend, as usual, sat in the back of the room. This gave her, unintentionally, a view of many people’s laptop screens. She noticed that many people appeared to be using their laptops not to take notes on the meeting, but rather, to work on other projects during the meeting.
This example relates to the class topic of attention. During this meeting, many people were not focusing their attention where it belonged – on the meeting presenters. In addition, by trying to pay attention to multiple things at once, were the attendees really listening to or doing any of them well? Finally, those members of the audience using selective attention techniques were not getting the complete message of the presentation.