Teachers, speakers, comedians and students have long known this and are constantly aware of their audience. It should be taught to politicians and political media political and news talk shows There can be many sources for boredom . Repetitive or poorly delivered content may be one. A pleasant, sonorous, soothing voice is not good from a speaker of length. When George H Bush ran for President the first time, I recall some know-it-all insist he would never be elected because his voice was too high and thin and lacked the persuasive quality necessary for leadership. He was proven, as so many so called 'predictors', wrong.
The temperature and air quality of a room is key that it be a comfortable temperature with lots of oxygen in the room. It is quite universally observed that most people tend to absorb and retain no more than the content of an hour of verbally imparted information, no matter how long the speaker continues. (Charlie Sheen's manic outpourings have reached this limit.) Pressured speech, poor diction, or heavy foreign accents make listeners tired, trying to understand what is being said.
When there is breaking news of a world disaster, the repeats and attempts of TV personalities to describe it, ad nauseum, make it easy to miss, as the human brain may selectively tune out the repetitions. Additionally, there is nothing that pushes out inspiration like boredom, ennui, or depression.
Preoccupation elsewhere or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) is another threat to concentration. Slipping into daydreams and fantasies is a constant threat in boredom. In college, many years ago, I had a brilliant professor who, unfortunately, had Parkinson's disease. Standing behind a microphone, he used a pencil, as a maestro would a baton. If his hand happened near the microphone, the resounding taps were like machine gun bullets. He effectively pulled his student audience back to his subject.
For of emulating that which I warn against, let me close here......
No comments:
Post a Comment