Week Two: Attention and Credibility

A Peek at the Week

This week, we were tasked with reading chapters one and two of Net Smart by Howard Rheingold, "Effectively and Efficiently Reading the Credibility of Online Sources" by Dana Lynn Driscoll, et al., "Googlepedia" by Randall McClure, and "Attention, and Other 21st Century Literacies" by Howard Rheingold. Each of these articles are summarized below:

• In chapter one of Net Smart, Rheingold uses his own experiences and the works of others to discuss the importance of attention. He begins by writing about multitasking and how many individuals fail to do it in a successful way. Then, he dives into the neuroscience realm of attention by elaborating on the brain's ability to create memories and focus. With that said, he also mentions, "...that the frequent checking behavior of our favorite social networks might be reinforced by the chemically mediated feeling of connection it gives us (oxytocin) as well as the chemical reward for hunting-seeking behavior (dopamine)..." (Rheingold, p. 47-48). Due to this scientific research, the author brings to light the value of meditation. Ending this chapter, Rheingold provided readers with reasons for using meditation and how it can be immediately effective in the digital world.
  

• In chapter two of Net Smart, Rheingold provides insight into what he calls "crap detection". In this section, he discusses a few techniques for learning how to check the reliability of a source. He uses a combination of excerpts from other authors as well as his own to write about the importance and relevance of credibility. The author urges readers to learn how to search the web and check credibility efficiently. Later in the chapter, Rheingold quotes Gillmor's five principles to media consumption. These principles include being skeptical, exercising judgment, opening minds, asking questions, and learning media techniques. The author also defines infotention as a method to "...describe a mind-machine combination of brain-powered attention skills and computer-powered information filters" (Rheingold, p. 97). He ends by discussing the components of infotention and the history behind the tools.
  

•  In this article of Writing Spaces, the authors discuss critical thinking and credibility. To begin, the terms misinformation, disinformation, critical thinking, and credibility are defined. These terms were the foundation of the article, so it was important to understand their meanings. In this piece, the authors elaborate on a newer approach for checking the credibility of a source: lateral reading. The steps for lateral reading include leaving the site to check if it appears on a fact-checking site, researching the author, and digging into the site's background. This method can be used for a variety of sources whether primary or secondary and whether an article or video. The authors also urge the audience to be aware of the source's bias as well as their own bias. In the last portion, the article states tips that can be used to support the lateral reading method. These include clicking on hyperlinks, opening new tabs, and moving around the web deliberately. 
  

• In the essay "Googlepedia: Turnin Information Behaviors into Research Skills", Randall McClure discusses the new ways of researching that he is seeing trend amongst the newer generations. In addition, he clarifies how students and professors alike can combine old and new researching skills to curate materials needed for writing. Throughout the essay, he uses two students, Susan and Edward, to demonstrate different uses of the newer researching method and to examine how to go about implementing the older researching methods in a productive manner. 

• In this article, Rheingold explains the five social media literacies that he focuses on. These five literacies include attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness, and critical consumption. When describing attention, he discussed how students must be able to control where their attention goes during different situations. For example, during class the students should be able to put their attention on the teacher; but many fail as media on their computers are more attractive. As participation is described, it can be concluded that society has powerful tools (like computers) that can allow virtually anyone to participate on any media platform. For collaboration, Rheingold believes that society today is able to collaborate far more regularly because barriers like distance and time are eliminated with technology. Network awareness is said to be more complicated as it requires the person to decide what they want in their attention sphere; everyone must decide who they will listen to and trust online. Likewise, critical consumption means figuring out what to trust online. Lastly, interconnection discusses the combination of all of these. 

Connections

Each of these writings are connected in some way as they all pertain to this week's topics of attention and credibility. Some more notable connections would be chapter one of Net Smart and "Attention, and Other 21st Century Literacies" as well as chapter two of Net Smart and "Effectively and Efficiently Reading the Credibility of Online Sources". Each of these related more with their respective pair as the information in each could be tied down to one of this week's topics. These writings all provided similar information as well as some ties to each reading. In addition, this week's readings related to last week's because it dove into two of the topics mentioned including attention and "crap detection". With that said, these readings are related to my everyday life because I am faced with focusing on what I spend my time paying attention to and how I check credibility of sources each day. Do you know how to check credibility?

Visual of the Week

The image below is representative of this week's readings because it shows the practice of meditation. Meditation was in our readings as a way to aid in focusing our attention.

Alt Text for Image Description: The image above uses cool colors like green and blue to provide a calming effect while showcasing a woman meditating in the middle. This woman is sitting down on the grass with her legs crossed and her hands on her knees. Her eyes are closed as she focuses on her surroundings.

Contributions to Learning

This week's readings contributed greatly to my learning as they allowed me to gain more insight into how I should be focusing my attention and how I should be checking sources for credibility. Although I knew to check sources for research papers in class, I failed to see that checking sources should be applied in my everyday life with social media. Similarly, I failed to see that my attention was being taken by posts that didn't necessarily align with my needs. 

Ponder This

Do you pay attention to paying attention? 
Do you know how to effectively check credibility?

Sources

Rheingold, H. (2012). Net smart: How to thrive online. MIT Press. 

Tree. (n.d.). Mental health meditation illustration, meditation, mindfulness, yoga

PNG transparent image and Clipart for free download. Pngtree. https://pngtree.com/freepng/mental-health-meditation-illustration_13147768.html