Stephen Downes

I think Mike Taylor is on the right track here as he reframes what we're talking aboiut when we talk about attention. The most important thing is that there isn't some predefined attention span (equal to that of a goldfish or whatever). A moment's reflection will prove this. When I race my bicycle down a hill, my attention doesn't waver or run out of 'span'. Attention is something that starts and stops as a result of a decision, and this decision can be prompted. Taylor credits John Keller's model - Attention, Relevance, Confidence, Satisfaction (ARCS) - but of course it's also the first item in Gagne's nine events. Where Taylor is wrong, I think, is in drawing an analogy between attention and money. Try, the language of capital infuses our vocabulary, so we 'pay money' and 'pay attention', but attention is not a type of "rational economics". It's messy and complex, emotion-driven and context-sensitive, just like everything else human (except a banker's heart).