Attention: The key to success

Attention: The key to success

The ability to manage attention holds the key to change one’s growth trajectory. Numerous learning applications thus now focus on improving attention power

Bijin.Jose@timesgroup.com

31.05.2021 

Learning is a lifelong pursuit. It expands the horizons of one's imagination and the scope of one's potentials. From a nascent stage, education systems around the world have been emphasising the significance of learning and acquiring knowledge. And, when it comes to learning, attention is the first step in this direction.

Attention is essentially one's ability to actively engage and process specific information or task. It is limited in its capacity and duration, making it vital to have measures to effectively manage it.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "Attention, in psychology, the concentration of awareness on some phenomenon to the exclusion of other stimuli." It has more to do with the immediate experience of the individual or their current state of awareness.

AN ESSENTIAL SKILL

Everyone is adequately equipped with attention skills. However, unable to pay attention both among children and adults is fairly commonplace. When it comes to education, students are required to focus on the lessons and instructions imparted by the teacher, or for adults, it's important to pay attention to the traffic signal.

The ability to pay attention is different in each individual. While it's easy to focus on things that capture our interests, it gets cumbersome when trying to pay attention to things that aren't very exciting. According to experts, emotions like feeling sad, depressed or anxious are a deterrent to paying attention.

While a century ago it wasn't possible, in 2021 technology is enabling people to manage their attention.

ATTENTION AND ACADEMICS

Every parent wants their child to excel in academics. Attention plays a strong role in other areas of life as well. However, harnessing the power of attention in the formative years can be beneficial and teachers, parents, and technology play a vital role in this. There is countless research that shows how improving or managing attention can help students enhance their academic performance. Considering the diversity in a classroom, it is unlikely that every child would learn and engage in unison. Individualised attention can be rewarding in this scenario. Today, technology is efficiently filling in the gaps offering highly customised and engaging ways to enhance attention.

Technology is offering solutions like addressing the specific needs of every child and adjusting the pace of their learning. With a host of learning applications, there is scope to impact the acquisition of knowledge.

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES

At present, the world is vastly divided in its perception of technology. While some believe the collective decrease in attention span is associated with the rise of technology, there are many who strongly vouch for tech that promotes attentions skill to improve productivity and academic performance. It is no longer a distraction, technology is offering numerous learning and education applications that help one focus, cancel distractions, and games to enhance cognitive abilities. These tools also help in mapping times of the day when the attention is the highest or lowest, giving students and teachers to effectively manage their attention and learning schedules.

TRAINING THE BRAIN

The brain needs as much fitness training as the body. Regularly challenging the brain can enhance performance in all kinds of cognitive activities like tasks related to concentration and memory. The modern-day learning apps are fun and engaging as they offer vibrant and interactive content to boost learning.

The key ingredients here are the will to learn and an insatiable curiosity. These applications are replete with information in the form of e-books, infographics, podcasts, and videos that are enabling many in their academic pursuits.

Technology is personalising education and offers engagement by cutting down on distractions. Dynamic content and interactive interfaces are not only offering knowledge, but also an efficient way to manage attention.

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