The Attention Economy

Multitasking. I'm sure it is what everyone of us is very good at and always do. Living at such a high pressure place, most of us would not let ourselves don't have anything to do. We have to keep ourselves busy to let others know we have worked and contributed to the society. More than that, we always let ourselves get into a situation that doing several things at that same time.

Multitasking is not new to us but something that have to learn and be trained. It helps us to do things in an efficient way unless we stay focus enough in what we are doing. I listen to the radio while I read. I talk to my friends on phone while I check e-mail. There are lots of things I can do at the same time. But one thing I don't do is When I am doing assignments, I would not log into FACEBOOK  or chat with others via MSN. It is because I know that I can't focus on my work while my mind is connecting with my friends.

Assets. people in the old economy treat money, apartment or gold as their assets. Only something that can see or touch is our wealth. However, as the internet and digital technology have a great impact on us, the definition of wealth changes. Money is not the only thing we concern, we also have a desire of getting popular in the society or even the world. It is not hard to find there are lots of video clips or articles posted by different users in blogs or facebook. The spreadig speed of any information or resources cannot be imagined. With the power of the internet, attention can be drawn for any point of the place. More attentions come with greater popularity. With the power of the technology, our wealth can be increased also, if popularity really means a lot to us.

I think celebrities like actors would treat popularity far more serious than others. They want to have great influence to the society or in their own communities. They try very hard to build up their images  via countless methods. With greater popularity, it comes more people to know you and have more job opportunities. They are seeking attention of the world to them. However, digital technology can help build a positive image but also can destroy one's image and affecting the wealth. Therefore, it's appropriate that the economy have to change from the traditional model to the attention model. We have to maximize our wealth in a suitable and careful way. Otherwise, we may accidentally get the adverse result!

Games, Learning and Literacy

I'm not the kind of person that get into video games very much. Actually, I seldom play digital games. When I was small, it's not common to have a video game as it was so expensive. Now, if students don't have one in their home, they will be treated as abnormal! Although I'm not good at playing these games, still I remembered I was also affected by one or two.

The most remarkable one in my memory on THE SIMS!.

I think the game had a great success in the industry a few years ago. By having control in the virtual world, the game fulfill players' desire of making every decisions on our own as sometimes in  the reality, we don't even have a chance to make choice. The production company understood the thoughts of us and thus create this wonderful PC game. I like playing this game as I can control the people whatever I want. Of course in the past I couldn't think of anything of you asked me whether I can learn something in the game. I would just tell you it was so funny! However, the lecture on last Tuesday inspired me to think about it.

When doing the in-class assignment of which we was told to designed our own game, I realized all games are produced for a purpose. Therefore I think The Sims has got its purpose for the players. Players have to arrange things for the characters to do. Even tiny little thing like washing dishes and feeding dogs, they all have to be arranged by the players. It makes me think we need to have plan for our life in advance. If we always make ad hoc decision, we can't really make good use of our life. Moreover, we must have a goal for our life, otherwise we may not know what to do and even lose passion for doing anything. You may think that I think too much from a PC game, but it's true that I get such reflection from the game! Moreover, although in my view that I didn't acquire much about English when playing the game, when I tried to fond out more information about the game, I went online to search for more. Browsing the those related sites gave me more chances to read English! So i think ultimately I was equipped with better language skills by the Sims!

Here is the behind-the-scene video of SIMS 3. Enjoy! I find it's so interesting to find out how this wonderful game is produced!