As I'm sure I've mentioned on this blog many times, I'm not exactly the world's biggest sports fan. So forgive me for not writing this commentary sooner.

Anyway, I learned the other day that the National Football League (that's "American Football" for any international readers) offers a special channel on most cable and satellite systems called the NFL RedZone. The channel is basically a live mash-up of a given Sunday's plethora of football games, so that whenever a given team in a given game is inside the 20 yard line, the channel will switch to that game. (I'm not afraid to admit that I only have a vague understanding of what the latter part of that last sentence means and why it's a good criterion for determining when a game is about to be exciting.)

My inner-technologist really likes the idea of a curated channel for sports fans. While I'm about as close to being a die-hard football fan as Earth is to Alpha Centauri, I have watched enough football (if very passively) to know that the games can be very boring and devoid of action at times. So I can imagine why someone who loves football as much as I love object-oriented programming would like the idea of having a feed of only the "cream of the crop" moments from a day's football lineup.

But at the same time, I worry that services like the NFL's RedZone only serve to reinforce our society's freakishly short attention span.

Even something as simple (from a technical standpoint) as the president's weekly video address has a cut every few seconds, as if people will somehow be more interested in what the president has to say about tax policy if they are treated to alternately close and wide shots of the president's upper body. Further, the latter four minutes president's five-minute videos are really just recapitulating the well-articulated, but vague and unexplained first minute.

By contrast, FDR's original fireside chats sometimes lasted a half hour, and were usually genuine efforts to educate the public about everything from the role of banks in an economy to the dynamics of inflation, not just superficial assertions that "banks play an important role." I don't think I've ever heard a modern politician mention — let alone explain — the concept of purchasing power parity, as FDR did in one of his addresses. (Or at least not in a message intended for the general public.)

Even in football, I suspect the true magic of a game is not to be found only its most intense moments, or in the final coup de grâce — when one team is on the brink of making a game-changing move — but rather in the sum of the small strategic steps each team or player makes in pursuit of victory.

Focusing solely on the sensational and the superficial, while perhaps more relaxing or "pleasurable," blinds us from understanding and really appreciating greatness. Just as I suspect citizens would not be as angry about the bank bailouts if they took the time to genuinely understand how our financial system works, I also believe even the most die-hard football fan would have an even greater, deeper understanding of their passion if they took the time to appreciate more than the touchdowns alone.