Chapter 1 Now You See It

Summary:
In this chapter, Cathy talks about the Cymbalta ad. She talks about how the company who made and designed the ad, try to make it more appealing to the viewers. They do this by making sure to grab our attention in the first few seconds of the commercial. According to Draftfcb's motto (the company who produced the Cymbalta commercial), a typical viewer only pays attention to 6.5 seconds of an ad. She also talks about how they use distraction in the commercial. When they name off all of the dangerous side effects, they show happy images and music, to distract the viewer from noticing all the bad things about the product. She also mentions that we are more likely to remember positive things than negative things. Another thing Cathy talks about in this chapter is how we learn about distraction when we are infants and how differently, different cultures interact with their children and how it can affect how the child sees things when they are older.

Critical Commentary:
I think it is interesting about how companies who produce ads, plan everything out to make sure the viewer pays attention to the main point of the ad; the product they are trying to sell. I also think it's crazy, but somewhat believable, that most viewers only pay attention to 6.5 seconds of an ad. In this chapter, Cathy does a good job of grabbing your attention in the beginning of the chapter, so that you start out interested. She does this by describing what she is going to talk about in the chapter, without directly telling you at first. This makes you want to find out what it's about. It is very interesting when she talks about the differences of different cultures when they interact with their children. I never really realized how different it was. Cathy uses a lot of repetition, in her writing. This can be a good thing, but can also be bad. It can be good, because it makes her point or objective stand out. It can be bad because it can make the reading a little boring somethings and it seems to drag on. Cathy provides many interesting facts in her writing, which makes her argument seem more convincing. One of the interesting facts she uses is "A study conducted in 2009 revealed that newborns cry in the language patterns they hear in utero." Her argument in the book is that distraction is a good thing, but this chapter specifically talks about  how we learn from distraction.