I recently listened to Joseph Gordon-Levitt deliver a TED Talk called, How craving attention makes you less creative. He shares the extent to which while he is acting he is in “flow”; truly paying attention to his character, but that when he is on social media, he often feels like he becomes more concerned with competing for attention. He says,
“the more I go after that powerful feeling of paying attention, the happier I am. But the more I go after the powerful feeling of getting attention, the unhappier I am”
I think this is an important conversation to have with our students and our children in particular because of the growing number of kids who are on social media. In Social LEADia(Chapter 4), I shared Howard Rheingold’s emphasis on attention as the most powerful skill kids need today. I share the need to have conversations about how companies try to get our attention and how we try to get one another’s attention, as well as the importance of asking students to reflect on how dividing their attention (multi-tasking) is hurting them or helping them.
Gordon-Levitt picks up on these ideas and relates them to his own experiences as an actor and a social media user. He suggests we don’t see others as competitors, rather, see others as collaborators.
I think this talk might make a great lesson and conversation starter. Before viewing, I would ask students to think about a situation in their daily life when they need pay attention and what they have seen people do to get attention. After viewing the TED Talk you may ask students to reflect on this:
Anytime somebody posts on Instagram,they get a certain amount of attention from their followers,whether they have a few followers or a few million followers.And the more attention you’re able to get,the more attention Instagram is able to sell.So it’s in Instagram’s interest for you to get as much attention as possible.And so it trains you to want that attention,to crave it, to feel stressed out when you’re not getting enough of it.Instagram gets its users addictedto the powerful feeling of getting attention.
or this:
“the more regularly you pay attention to one thing, the happier you will be”.
You could use this provocation as a bell starter by putting the quotation up (while you work on administrative tasks) and then, students can engage in a Four Corners (Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree). Have students share the extent to which they feel social media gets their attention and makes them unhappy. Or you can use a folded value line to get kids talking to one person.
As a follow-up to the discussion, you could ask students to set goals and check in with them from time to time. Have students share their goals with their family members and each other to keep them accountable?
And perhaps you are wondering how this fits in with your curriculum? More and more research is surfacing about attention as one of the most fundamental skills we can help our kids achieve today. We can build these discussions into any content area, but more importantly, helping our kids pay attention will help them to be happier and more focused so you can get through your curriculum. Check out some of the ideas in this post, and in Chapter 4 of Social LEADia. If you are a parent reading this, check out this Common Sense Media post.
How can we help kids to pay attention, collaborate, and create without feeling like they need to compete with one another this school year? How have you tackled attention in your classroom or home? Would love to hear about it in the comments section.