Building Attention Span

Over the past few years researchers have done a lot of work on attention span, and how the brain is being re-sculpted by all those hours a day spent online. One of the conclusions that some of them are coming to is that the online life nurtures fluid intelligence and offline life is better at nurturing crystallizing intelligence.

.. Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use experience, knowledge and the products of lifelong education that have been stored in long-term memory. It is the ability to make analogies and comparisons about things you have studied before. Crystallized intelligence accumulates over the years and leads ultimately to understanding and wisdom.

 

Rawanda Refugee’s Story (beyond Ophrah)

At age six, I ran away with my sister to escape the Rwandan massacre. We spent seven years as refugees. What do you want me to do about it? Cry?

The day we taped the Oprah show, in 2006, I met my sister Claire at her run-down, three-bedroom apartment in Rogers Park, where she lived with the three kids she had before age 21, thanks to her ex-husband, an aid worker who’d picked her up at a refugee camp.

Why Television Is Still King for Campaign Spending

Presidential campaign staffers like to talk about a digital strategy, and with good reason. But television continues to occupy the vast majority of most campaigns’ budgets.

Here’s why: TV reaches 87 percent of Americans 18 and older, according to a new report from Nielsen, which tracks media usage across platforms and devices.

The report suggests that nothing will displace television as the centerpiece of presidential campaign media strategy in 2016. Television-watching adults spent an average of 7.5 hours a day in front of the set during the first three months of this year, according to the Nielsen report, far more time than people spend on their personal computers, smartphones and tablets. And older Americans — among the most dependable voters — watch more television than their younger counterparts.