ADHDediting: You have it too!? Wait...what were we talking about? Nice shoes.

Here's my two coins about this 1/f business (what does that really mean anyways? Like, 1 eyeball over Facebook...?)

image from the NYT that means almost nothing to me...

I'm with Cinematical. All you grumpy commenters...carry on if you must, but I'm muting you. I'm not really into the business of divvying 'good' and 'bad' film, but for what it's worth, every 'good' filmmaker chooses EVERY shot for a reason. We have to remember that television--at the outset--was a commercial invention, and with that, the so-called MTV-edit works like crack for Madison Ave. It also deadens your critical thinking skills! Idiot consumers are we...

And that's not idle chatter, I'm giving you real talk.

:::SOAPBOX ALERT:::

Here's the reason why I wanted to get into moving pictures. When you can analyze an occurrence--in REAL TIME--on as many levels as even the most basic film theoretician requires, you're a bad, bad, perceptive mutha-shut-yo-mouf.

By beholding, we become changed. If you know how to deconstruct what you're beholding, that may be half the battle towards your personal liberation from commercial culture--and re-education about the society you confront in real life on the day to day.

But when your senses are being assaulted, that ability could be weakened. When the same tendencies of television manifest themselves on the big screen, I'm prone to concern. Cinema has always been a more freeing medium than TV or radio where speech was concerned. So this study almost feels like more of a victory lap for advertisers. smh.

:::SOAPBOX ALERT ENDED:::

Now I feel like I need to write about this given the amount of steam it's picked up and therein, quasi street cred it's being given. Furthermore I feel compelled for my little people's sake.

I can't think of a single child of mine who wanted to sit in a classroom for 8 hours, even 1 hour, to listen to their teacher-tutor-person drone about much, if anything. And most, if not all, my kids know and can testify to the fact that I've never been too good at doing the droning myself. I'm bouncing off the walls in the classroom just as much as they are. ("Ms. Johnson! NOOOOOOO MORE COFFEE FOR YOU!")

But they'll also be able to articulate in cutesy-kid ways that success is not a by-product of the undisciplined mind.

There have been a handful whose attention span rivals the brevity of my own. But who can really say if movies and television killed our inability to focus or if the chicken came before the egg.

Regardless, The New Scientist thinks they're on to something...or that HWD is on to something by way of dicey edits. I'm not gonna front. If you look at my bitty-doc, I'm guilty of the same 2-second rule that manifests itself in a very annoying way on primetime television. But whose fault is this forced engagement really?

VH1 admonishes its auds: "Watch and Discuss."

That's a great tagline for encouraging meaningful dialogue, ANALYZING, SYNTHESIZING, EVALUATING (and DOING-CREATING!)--all higher order thinking skills--but there's a fine line between engagement and (READ: mind numbing) entertainment. Hence my getWOKE! refrain.

I'm still learning the difference between engagement and entertainment myself. 

If The New Scientist twurks something out to that end--remind me we ever had this conversation.