Comments on: The Attention Span: 1938 and Today

By: The Attention Span: 1938 and Today « Sinapinsiemen

The Attention Span: 1938 and Today « Sinapinsiemen — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:27:54 +0000

[...] http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/10/04/the-attention-span-1938-and-today/ [...]

By: The attention spam « Beancounterblog

The attention spam « Beancounterblog — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:11:13 +0000

[...] http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/10/04/the-attention-span-1938-and-today/ [...]

By: alexandra

alexandra — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:20:17 +0000

i made it to 00:53 seconds and i still feel like i saw enough to comment. what i think is sad is that although the introductory titles lasted for so long, i tested myself and tried to recall them and i had no idea.

By: gm

gm — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:14:51 +0000

I made it to about 7:00, and boy am I glad I did. “They better know [where they're going] for they are all blind! They too sense the desert florae, that for the rest of us it is our additional pleasure to see!”

So unintentionally hilarious.

By: gm

gm — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:04:45 +0000

I don’t know about skiing, but they do allow sledding – you can rent these discs and slide down the sand. Pretty fun, actually.

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:53:11 +0000

I quite liked it – it gave me a chance to finish a row of knitting and a chat conversation that I was having at the same time as surfing the net. Uhhh… did I just prove your point? :P

I was struck similarly while watching the old version of Planet of the Apes recently. There’s one whole scene that is Charlton Heston walking along the beach and up steps in the cliff. It’s uncut and I swear it lasts almost a whole minute. At the time I was more interested in what that said about the different styles and languages of film. But come to think of it, it was really really annoying and boring, and in a short form piece (tv show or similar) or something I wasn’t invested in watching, that would have been enough time for me to decide I could be doing something else, and turn it off.

By: Attention Span in the Internet Age: Information Overload, Memory, and Teal Deers – Topics in Digital Media - Fall 09

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:00:35 +0000

[...] different approach to the subject was brought up on the blog Sociological Images. In the post, the author (Lisa Wade, from Occidental College) marvels at how slow a YouTube video of a [...]

By: Dara G

Dara G — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:46:31 +0000

I’ve watched it all and I think the main difference is simply stylistic. A lot of the same information would be included in a modern documentary segment, but the cinematography, narration, and background music would all be different. The camera technology and techniques weren’t very advanced in the 30′s; I noticed that the camera didn’t move around very much. A modern documentary would have a lot more cuts, panning, and varying focus (from the panoramic shots to close-ups). Nowadays, the narrator would be someone who didn’t sound like a stentorian pedagogue, but a person who spoke in a more modulated and concise, even colloquial fashion. There’s lots of little stylistic things, like not narrating the names of the nearby national parks as they showed them, or including an entire clause of pure hyperbole before saying “…the yucca”, for example, that would be done very differently today. Also, that awful background music sounds like a soundtrack clip from a Judy Garland movie. I could swear the exact same smarmy orchestral pseudo-jazz was used for nearly every sentimental movie and “educational film” of the era.

All that said on the technical aspects, I don’t understand the purpose of including the blind girls’ school expedition, and I think it’s very sad that the film was in black and white when they started showing the sunset scene. Colored film is an under-appreciated blessing.

Color contrast, camera cuts, changes of focus, a more engaging style of narration, and less emphasis on facts, figures, and industry are all hallmarks of modern nature documentaries. The idea is to fascinate and engage the viewer, whereas I interpret that the viewer is expected to take an interest in the material on its own merit in this old clip. I think that contrasting old educational films like this one with modern documentaries reveals some key differences in societal expectations and norms between 1938 and 2009.

Disclaimer: I am not a sociology major and I have no idea how to quantify my observations in a scientifically acceptable fashion. I will take any harsh criticism and undue nastiness with laconic indifference, so you may as well save your fingers the strain of typing it.

By: saraphonic

saraphonic — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:02:49 +0000

This is exactly how I felt about the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was worried that I wasn’t “getting the point” or appreciating it’s groundbreaking nature because I’m used to having things spoon-fed to me in other movies.

I started taking it as a personal challenge between me and Kubrick… every time a loud alarm would go off for over 30 seconds, every time a spaceship would take over a minute to reach its destination in complete silence, I would think in my head “THIS IS FOR YOU, STANLEY”

By: MGW

MGW — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:50:24 +0000

I was fascinated. I like old movie clips and I am deeply interested in deserts and desert travel.

By: amgriffin

amgriffin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:35:42 +0000

I enjoy watching old films and the title pages seem to have about the same pacing that they often display, but usually there is more text – multiple names of performers and the characters they portray, etc. The pace of the film and narration is quite a bit slower than other films of that period that I have watched. One of my favorite things about these films is listening to accents that seem to have gone out of use. The narrator in this film pronounces some words in almost a transatlantic accent. Wish I could emulate it!

By: Sam R

Sam R — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:49:35 +0000

I couldn’t even wait for it to load! – ha!

By: Duran2

Duran2 — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:58:16 +0000

Good post, lisa.

At first, I was really, really bored. I think I was in “instant gratification youtube mode”. But after the content started, I really started to get into it. So, go figure.

I think I have different expectations for 3 minute online videos vs. television. I’m happy to sit through the 60 second intro to my favorite sitcoms, which I’ve seen dozens of times.

By: buttercup

buttercup — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:44:36 +0000

Well now I regret not visiting there when i lived in west texas. Didn’t find it boring in the least.

By: Juliem

Juliem — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:57:17 +0000

I watch a lot of old films, and always assumed the long “title time” was because of a lower literacy rate at the time. I remember my grandfather reading very, very slowly, sounding each word out, and I always imagined some portion of the movie theater audience doing the same.

Personally, I enjoyed the little documentary, and learned lots of trivial factoids that will come in handy in doing crosswords and parlor games. gypsum= calcium sulfate – Hee! (actually that is pretty significant when you recall the surfing guy falling into the “sand;” my first thought was, “Ouch! Why didn’t he just lose 3 layers of skin?”)