COMN 2500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Switching Barriers

• School: York University
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: COMN 2500
• Professor: Ganaele M Langlois

Document Summary

The spoken word was the first technology by which man was able to let go of his environment in order to grasp it in a new way marshall mcluhan. Introduction of the map abstract representation of space. Intellectual technologies change the way we think and make us more attentive. Multimedia system, great for exchanging messages quickly. Downside keeps us in a perpetual state of distraction, constant interruptions. When we multi-task we shift our attention very quickly among different things, therefore (cid:449)e"re (cid:374)ot doing two things simultaneously. Switching costs: our brain has to attune itself to one thing, clear itself out, and then attune itself to another thing. As we do this we become less efficient thinkers. People who do a whole lot of multi-tasking begin to lose their ability to distinguish important information from trivia. What becomes important to them is getting new i(cid:374)for(cid:373)atio(cid:374); it does(cid:374)"t (cid:373)atter if it"s good i(cid:374)for(cid:373)atio(cid:374) or (cid:271)ad i(cid:374)for(cid:373)atio(cid:374).