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The problem with multimedia - redux (3)
By barney | January 5, 2008
Well, I’m back with another installment of what you may consider to be an extended rant. It isn’t.
See, I’m not against the use of multimedia. I’m against the misuse of multimedia.
Video, in particular, takes up a lot of bandwidth. It’s nearly impossible over a dial-up, and over half the Internet connectivity, in the US, at least, is dial-up. Can you think of many things more useless than an unseen video <snort />?
However, what I want to discuss today is audio.
Back in my corporate days, I once had a manager, Bob, who was born and raised in New Hampshire. I often had to ask him to repeat things - he simply talked faster than I could hear <chuckle />. His enunciation and diction were excellent, but he spoke so rapidly that words would run together.
But.
I could read faster than he could talk.
Why is that statement relevant? Time! If I can read four times faster than you can talk, I can process three messages in the time it takes you to deliver one, and still have time left over.
Various research projects have established that the faster you read, the greater your comprehension and retention. That’s one of the reasons for all the speed-reading courses that are available.
Unfortunately, the same is not true of hearing.
"We hear words, we read sentences, but we think in paragraphs."
I have no idea what/who the source of that statement might be, but it rings true.
We hear words. Our minds must put the words together into sentences. Our minds are pretty good at that. Our minds can do that pretty much as a background process that doesn’t take any real conscious effort or attention on our part.
But the content of those sentences requires attention, some degree of concentration. And if your attention is directed toward what you are hearing, it is directed away from something else.
I’ve received offers from a number of marketers offering audio training CDs that I could listen to while relaxing, while driving, or in my leisure time.
Hey, if I’m listing to a training audio, I’m not relaxing. Nor is that leisure time: it’s work.
As for driving …
If you are listening to a training audio and driving a car at the same time, I don’t want to be on the same road with you - you are dangerous!
Yeah, yeah … lots of people listen to training and motivation stuff while driving. I’m scared of them, too.
They call it multi-tasking. I’m not certain they understand the concept.
Multi-tasking refers to having two or more tasks going at the same time. People switch their attention from one to another as needed. However, ’tis a very rare individual who can actually pay attention to two or more tasks at the same time.
The human mind just isn’t built that way. Oh, we can track more than one task at a time, after a fashion, but we cannot concentrate on more than one task at a time, save for the aforementioned rare few.
Most of us just switch out attention from one task to another as required. Oh, we can spare enough attention to listen for an alarm or glance at a tell-tale, but our concentration is upon just one task.
And that works just fine in the kitchen, at work, in the yard, on the beach.
But it’s damned dangerous on the road.
Here in the US, many areas have banned use of cell phones while driving. The reason is that people talking on the phone start concentrating on the phone conversation, taking their concentration away from driving.
Oh, they can keep the car on the road, but they’re not really paying attention to traffic.
To my mind, listening to motivation or training audios while driving is just as dangerous. If you’re really listening to the training, getting value from it, learning from it, you are not paying enough attention to your driving.
I don’t want to be on the road with you or anywhere near you.
If you happen to be one of those individuals who can truly split your concentration, you’ll likely think I’m nuts. But then you probably already think most folk are a bit slow-minded, don’t you?
OK, back to the time element.
If you’re an active marketer, you probably spend at least fifty to sixty hours a week on marketing, some weeks eighty or ninety, maybe more.
One of the audio offers I received boasted something like 120 hours of audio.
When does a marketer listen to that amount of training? When do you have time?
If it’s in a book, or books, you can carry the book with you, read a paragraph here, a chapter there. You can make notes in the margins. Or you can carry a notepad with the manual and make notes there.
With audio sessions, piecemeal listening is awkward at best. It’s a chore to back up a chapter, or even a few paragraphs, to review something, then pick up at the point where you went back for review. In some cases you don’t have that capability at all. In others, it’s damnably difficult to do.
Mind you, I have a number of training audios, and I do listen to them. A few videos, as well, which I watch.
At my desk. Not working on anything else. Jotting notes on the computer.
Because it is work, and it requires my concentrated attention if I’m going to learn.
OK, I’m tired and I’m starting to ramble - my brain has turned to mush (No cracks, please <chortle />.) There’s more to be said on this topic, but it’ll have to wait on another post.
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Topics: Technology |
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