From being a ‘second screen’ (to a TV or laptop/desktop being the ‘first’), the smartphone has comfortably become the primary screen for everything these days.
We have the phone next to us when we are watching TV, when we are reading a book (printed/Kindle), when we are on the laptop and so on. But the phone seems like the primary device these days given how often we break our focus and attention on what we are doing to ‘check’ the phone out. Even when the phone is not ringing or alerting us to something.
To be sure, I do perform two things at the same time, sometimes – I run on the treadmill while watching a TV series on my phone. I listen to music in the background while working on something. But the second-screen phenomenon is unique because it draws our attention to something immersive even if we were immersed in something else in the first place.
So, when I stumbled on his joke in the latest New Yorker, I was struck by the possibilities!
I do wonder if other screens could be programmed in a way that they play only when we make eye-contact with those screens for a suitable/pre-set amount of time. If our eye contact wavers, perhaps they should automatically pause, assuming that our attention is away. I anyway pause the TV to check my phone, if I have my phone next to me, that is.
To be fair, there are legitimate opportunities for the mobile phone to be a second screen to a TV when the otherwise non-interactive TV could be made interactive through an on-screen cue and with the use of a phone. But even as the phone engages us for a specific task, it could take over our attention given the many things it offers us, and ends up diverting our attention away from the first device that had our attention!
We already multiply our attention in so many ways – we have multiple browser tab windows open at the same time. We use 2 monitors/2 laptops at the same time, to track assorted things here and there. But in those cases, we consciously choose which screen to focus our attention albeit for a few seconds. When I am looking at my smartphone while the TV is running in the background, I do miss what’s playing on the TV.
On a related note, Samsung has announced a 110” Micro LED TV that has a Multi View feature to lets you watch up to four sources of content simultaneously on up to 55″ sized split screens, by connecting 4 external devices to each of the 4 modules!
I presume the technology giants won’t rest till they make mincemeat of the human attention span.
Cover image courtesy: Techcrunch