Project idea: improving my attention span

By now it's a commonplace that the internet whittles your attention span down to the sort of tiny nub that only lets you focus on one thing for about thirty seconds before popping away to check email or RSS or Twitter or what have you. Word among my older MIT friends is that burnout and curricular exasperation can have similar effects. I'm inclined to believe them, having lost all patience with, say, biomechanics. *growl* *ahem* Where was I?

Oh, yes. I've been thinking that, among the other soul-restorative measures I plan to take this summer, I should work on reconstructing my attention span. According to my parents, when I was young I had a wonderful attention span, and could admire a pebble for ten minutes together. I'm not sure how much I believe them, but I do feel like my attention span has decreased dramatically over the past couple of years as I've started to read more and more things on the internet.

So I gave myself a test. I had to read something all the way through without looking at anything else on my computer. I picked the first interesting-looking article out of Give Me Something To Read, which turned out to be an NYTimes article about arranged remarriages in China following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. (Incidentally, the article is very good -- thought-provoking and emotional without being overwrought.) Even though it was interesting, it was surprisingly difficult to get through. My mind kept wandering. Indeed, my mind is still wandering. I've pulled up my chat client once already while writing this blog post, and I keep having the urge to do it again. I'm like Randall Munroe at the typewriter here.

But with summer comes the opportunity to read books again! Do you have any idea how long it's been since I just sat down with a book and plowed more or less straight through the whole thing? I feel like I haven't done that since high school... So, as I pick up books again for the summer, I'll consciously practice keeping my attention on one thing for an extended period of time, and try to avoid get up every five minutes to get food or check my mail. We'll see how well I do, and whether this will translate to an improved studying efficiency in the fall.

To be intellectually uncomfortable

From one of Uncertain Principles' link dumps comes this piece from Inside Higher Ed: Tolerant Faculty, Intolerant Students. Apparently, despite the myth of the politically stubborn professor forcing his views on poor openminded students, the truth is more like students haranguing each other and professors doing fairly well at not inappropriately expressing political views. (Well, at least in Georgia. The study might have turned out differently if done on CRAZY CALIFORNIAN COLLEGES!!!!1!11!one.)

(I should note that I have only been in actual political discourse once all year, and it was with a student on my hall who fervently supported Ron Paul. Perfectly friendly, civil discussion; I didn't enjoy it because I don't enjoy political discourse, period. I haven't seen any politics in classes, probably because I haven't taken any classes where it's even marginally relevant. Coulomb's Law? Politicize that, bitches.)

The thing that really struck me about this article, though, was one particular quote: universities are a place to go to feel uncomfortable intellectually. Obviously, the article means this with regard to one's political beliefs -- but it's applicable in a much larger sense.

When I encounter something I can't understand, something really confusing, I get anxious and upset. This happens a lot because I'm at a difficult school, and it's to be expected that I will encounter confusing things. But why should I get upset? This is an artifact of tying understanding to Success and Achievement (TM), rather than understanding for its own sake. Even though I went to one of those hippie elementary schools where there are no grades, I suppose I still have kind of a hang-up about 'succeeding' versus being way outside of my comfort zone.

I really admire people who respond to confusing things by first feeling humble, and then feeling happy that they have another puzzle to solve. People who get suspicious if it looks like they understand everything. It's not that I think such people never get frustrated, but that seems like a highly useful mindset for a scientist or intellectual, much more so than getting upset and frustrated. (Certainly, given the complexity of the real world, if you think you understand everything about X, you're almost certainly wrong.) This mindset should also make for a happier person overall. Apart from that, it feels like the right thing to do -- it appeals to the idealist in me.

Universities are a place to go to feel uncomfortable intellectually.

The world is a place to go to feel uncomfortable intellectually!

I'm going to try and embrace this mindset, embrace this mantra. A form of "intellectual asceticism, perhaps?" Hopefully I can change my knee-jerk reaction to the difficult and the confusing.