Thinking Outside the Traditional 3D Mindset readup for Week 4

• Does multi-tasking give you a real or false sense of having accomplished something?

It gives me a false sense of having accomplished something. People who end up multi-tasking will indeed feel that the tasks are going towards completion, since they will always constantly monitor the progress of all the tasks that they are doing. However, like the article states, having that feeling does not always mean that time is efficiently used, and in fact, multi-tasking leads to poorer efficiency.

In contrast, people who single-task feels that they are slower, but that's because they are only constantly monitor the progress of one of the tasks (which is the current task that they are doing). Therefore, people have a wrong perception of multi-tasking because of these illusions that make multi-tasking shine in a good light, when in reality, it is actually more harmful than single-tasking.

Multi-tasking is for computers, where they only incur a little expense of time to switch between tasks. In fact, with modern technology, the time incurred becomes so small it becomes negligible. However, our human brain is not "engineered" to do multi-tasking, which is why multi-tasking can end up wasting more time instead of making us more efficient, because switching between tasks will temporary confuse our brain and it also takes time for the brain to adapt and work on the new task.

• Is learning 3D and design different from learning programming, or is all learning the same? Why?

Learning 3D and design and learning programming is slightly different because they focus on different skills that are needed. Programming requires more of thinking and logical skills, thus it is slightly more taxing to the brain than doing 3D and design.

However, at the end of the day, both still requires a lot of attention and a lot of time. Just like there's no free food in the world, there's no learning miracle in the world either. Unless a person's IQ is really high, we will be subjected to the fact that our brain needs to take time to absorb information, and our brain can also sometimes forget them too if we do not repeatedly reinforce the information into our brain.

• The article states that "Learning is actually a very complex operation for an individual". Do you agree with this? Do you feel that you approach your learning style in the best way - if yes, how, and if no, how can you change your work style?

Yes, I agree that learning can be very complex, because it requires a person to use a lot of attention and focus. You need your eyes to read and observe, but we can only read one thing at a time. You also need your brain to process information and perhaps use your logical part of the brain, but our brain has limited memory capacity and working power at a time. For learning alone, our brain have to manage our senses properly so that as much information is absorbed as possible, so our brain definitely do not have a space left for other tasks.

I think that I have not approached my learning style in the best way, because I get distracted very easily and thus ending up impeding the progress of my other tasks, especially those that are important. Removing or distancing myself away from the distractions would probably make my learning better.

• What are your thoughts about the last paragraph in the extract?

I think that the last paragraph of the extract is speaking the truth. Our society today is getting more and more individualism. Yet going in that direction does not generate any benefit to the company or to other colleagues, because eventually, the product has to be sold and the company has to hope that their customers will like it. In other words, we are doing the work not for ourselves alone, but also for other people.

If there is a lack of cooperation, then it will be very obvious to an outsider, because each part of the product will look different from other parts of the product and the uniformly of the entire product will disappear.

For example, lets say that a team of 4 people have to draw an image of a human. If it was done on paper, like in the past, people will have no choice but to work together on the single piece of paper. Nowadays, we have tools such as Photoshop that allows us to combine each and every individual's work together to produce a final product. So perhaps in an individualism scenario, we assign each people in the team to draw different parts of the human. 1 will draw the arms and the hands, 1 will draw the legs, 1 will draw the head, and 1 draws the chest area. If there is a lack of communication between the team, then when we combine everyone's work into Photoshop, we will end up having a monster, not a human. This is the reason why the uniformly of the product disappears, if there is a lack of cooperation within the team.

In the above example we also see a lack in a uniform direction. Everyone draws whatever style that they like. However, even with a uniform direction, the client that are buying the product may not like how it turns out. Thus, communicating with the client is also a critical skill, because otherwise you will end up being the only one who enjoys the product, not the customers. And we have to depend on customers to get our profits.

• Should your lecturers also focus on your work attitude, or just leave you to sink or swim on your own? Why?

I think that at the end of the day, we are the only one responsible for our work attitude. Our lecturers do not need to focus on our work attitude, because naturally, they already have. Lousy work attitude will produce lousy work, so the results will already have partially reflect the work attitude that you have. The result is the best way to tell a student to buck up and correct their work attitude. Therefore I think the lecturers do not need do anything more than that to focus on our work attitude. No matter how much the lecturers do, the matter of correctly our work attitude is eventually decided by us. If we will change it, we will, if not, then nothing else can really do any impact or changes.