Author: Makenzie Gardiner

My attention span is quite short. Something is constantly changing the direction of my attention. Whether it’s a notification, background music, or just another random thought, most of the time it doesn’t last long. But, when I am paying attention for an extended period of time, I really examine every part of it. With OCD, I find myself being forced to attend to more things than I agree to attend to. It pulls your attention in every direction. There is always a constant noise playing in the back of your head that demands immediate engagement. This makes it feel like I’m constantly focusing on at least two tasks at once. Most of the time the intrusive thoughts completely take over and strip my attention away from the current, important task. Digital media only enhances my short attention span as it is constantly leaving me with new thoughts to obsess over. I find myself either endlessly scrolling on social media or the exact opposite, only over analyzing one post or comment at a time.

On Monday, in my geography class, we watched a video about tsunamis, past tsunamis and potential future ones. There was a segment where the video explained the potential threat of a tsunami to the eastern U.S including New York, though it would be hundreds if not thousands of years before this natural disaster would occur. We were supposed to take notes and hand them in for an assignment but I was only able to write a few things down before my attention was completely turned to my safety from this potential tsunami. Notifications are also a huge disruptor to my attention. While I never am on my phone during class to ensure I am paying attention to the lesson, I have my apple watch that still sends notifications. On Wednesday, I logged every time I stopped paying attention to whatever the current task was at hand to look at or respond to the notification sent. This happened 53 times throughout the day with the number one notification being from snapchat. This is one of the things that I agree to attend to. This has made me more aware of media attention disruptors and moving forward not allowing myself to become distracted from notifications. Over the week I found many things that I both did agree to attend to as well as did not agree to attend to. The things that I did not agree to attend do have an impact on how I was able to “live my life” because of the pressures of the constant thoughts. But, the distractions that I do allow myself to attend have no hindrance on how I “live my life”. I feel as though distractions themselves are a part of life and how you choose to ignore or respond to them.

Previously to the transcribe-a-thon, I had no idea what the colored convention movement was or what it had entailed. I also have never worked with any digitized archival documents let alone transcribe them. All of this was a brand-new experience for me as well as the information regarding the transcriptions. I think that the colored convention movement is incredible and what they are doing is very important. It felt rewarding to be a part of a movement like this and know that even just a small contribution can be extremely helpful. Transcribing documents is crucial to preserving the documents historical values and its impact on the development of African American political thought and organization. The transcription gives historical context for the movement’s issues it addresses like education, labor, and legal justice. It also fosters community engagement by allowing individuals to connect with the history and current civil rights struggles.

Some challenges that I faced during the transcription were initially navigating the website and trying to follow all of the instructions. I was quite confused about the process on how to find and report names in the documents. Some of the documents were also difficult to read and understand what was written. I was eventually able to find the correct way to identify names after playing around with the Zooniverse website. If there was a document that was illegible, I would just move onto a different one that I could read and transcribe that one.

One of the documents that I transcribed (not pictured) mentioned the city of Rochester NY which is quite close to Geneseo and where I grew up. It was interesting to see that the colored conventions movement operated so close to myself. I found the process to be slightly calming, copying words down exactly how they’re written and reading along without the stress of an assignment was oddly soothing.

When engaging with the archival documents I learned a lot about the colored conventions movement and the documents. It covers issues like labor rights, voting laws, education, health and many more. It laid the groundwork for later African American institutions. Reading the documents as I transcribed them made me become more interested in the issues that were addressed and the movement itself. I also never heard of Frederick Douglass day so I learned a lot about him and how he impacted the colored conventions movement.