This is similar to an argument made in Cal Newport's book Deep Focus. He also goes on to argue that since we are living in an attention-deficit economy in a time when it is needed most, learning to dig out these distractions is becoming more invaluable. Great book if anyone is interested in becoming more focused and less distracted like this article suggests.
The attention economy
41–50 of 66 posts
Re: The attention economy
#42"An overabundance of rabbits leads to a shortage of lettuce."..."a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." Herbert Simon talked about this when we were still sending men to the moon [1]. This should be the charge of HCI practitioners, but the needs of consumers have largely been ignored. AI might provide some relief (my phone is getting better at learning when not to disrupt me...but it has a long way…
My feelies (feelings i have that i will now pass along like they were facts) tell me that smart phones help people to avoid thinking about hard things.
http://imgur.com/gallery/AD84Z6V
They help in the above as a distraction.
Outside of doing my banking, my smart phone does not help. its small and expensive, brittle, distracting. It exposes a lot of information about me externally. And people expect me to be available because of it.
I switch to a feature phone a while back for simple robustness. Now when i want to know the weather I just look up.
The HCI practitioners learned all their tricks from the gambling industry. Poker machines and smart phones are really similar in the reward cycle that the trap you in.
Re: The attention economy
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
0) Pick something you want to focus on. It could be your breath, a picture, an article you want to read, the sounds in your environment... 1) Set a timer for the period you want to focus on it for. In the beginning, I'd pick short times, like 2 minutes, or 5 minutes. 2) Try to remain focused on whatever you picked. You will inevitably fail. 3) Do not get angry at yourself! Your mind is like a puppy. It will want to w…
Curious, do you have any research links on this sort of thing? #3 is something I've been working on for handling "failure" in general. I think that acknowledging a lack of success as a system whose outputs only include much more than fail/succeed is how something can lead towards, well, failure.
This is the best resource on mindfulness I've come across:
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html
(scroll down for the chapter links.)
Re: The attention economy
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious, do you have any research links on this sort of thing? #3 is something I've been working on for handling "failure" in general. I think that acknowledging a lack of success as a system whose outputs only include much more than fail/succeed is how something can lead towards, well, failure.
I got introduced to mindfulness through "dialectical behaviour therapy"[0], in a hospital setting. The researcher who developed DBT initially was Marsha Linehan[1], who has many publications you can dig into. Similarly, mindfulness was introduced into popular medical use for stress reduction, trauma, depression, pain relief, etc. by Jon Kabat-Zinn[2], who also has published articles. I am sure the mindfulness article…
I've been practicing zazen, which mindfulness meditation largy are based on, for a couple of years. Since I became a parent I don't really have the time to practice. But in my experience these kind of excercises really help to focus, stabilize and still the mind. Another thing is to turn of all notifications in your smart phone and remove all social media apps. If I want to check Facebook I have to log in via the browser and this have decreased the number of times I check my feeds in a day.
Re: The attention economy
#45This is similar to an argument made in Cal Newport's book Deep Focus. He also goes on to argue that since we are living in an attention-deficit economy in a time when it is needed most, learning to dig out these distractions is becoming more invaluable. Great book if anyone is interested in becoming more focused and less distracted like this article suggests.
Loved the book, motivated me to cut out a lot of distractions in my daily work life, as well as take control in adjusting websites more to my needs (Writing small, custom tamper monkey javascript snippets to edit views of, for example, Facebook)
Just a small addendum, the book is called "Deep Work", not "Deep Focus"
Re: The attention economy
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even movies are too slow now for me and some others I'm around. Rarely am I engaged the whole time. It doesn't matter the genre. They take too long - just like books - to get a point across. It's definitely a symptom of the proliferation of smartphones. I'm not sure it's an entirely bad thing - just a shift in the way we consume media. Short burst rather than long-form. Long stretches of passive consumption could be…
Not just smartphones, but the internet in general in my experience. I'm not much of a smartphone user, I have the latest phone but I'm not a power-user at all. But I have the same issues talked about. For me it's related to how I consume information, it's very non-linear. Wikipedia is probably the best example, you read a page, then come across affiliated topics and click those, you go down the information tree on th…
> "And when I research a topic, I find I consume information similarly. When I think about say the environment, I tend to have many tiny questions popping up, and get them answered. This is akin to having a private teacher who has answers to all of a kids' questions, versus a school teacher who has got 60 minutes to cover standardised material in a linear fashion."
This may or may not work for you, but I find it helps to write notes on paper whilst I read, especially non-fiction. That way, I can capture what I was curious about or found interesting whilst still continuing to read. If I then find myself stuck, I can then go back to the notes I made earlier for a starting point to dig into the subject further. Not sure if this would work for fiction, but maybe it'd help with letting go of needing to know and letting your imagination take over.
Re: The attention economy
#47Does anyone have tips for re-gaining focused attention? Willing to try anything at this point.
Stop using external factors as an excuse ("I'd love to focus more, but no one gave me good advice" / "I'll wait until I'm doing it right, according to strangers on the internet") and start working on it.
Recently came across http://timewellspent.io, which you might want to check out. Right now their advice focuses on smartphone use, but I think it's pretty good. There is a longer essay about it here: https://medium.com/swlh/distracted-in-2016-reboot-your-phone... The single best piece of advice in there is to turn off notifications from apps that aren't essential to your life. I only have notifications from messaging apps where I talk to my friends and haven't missed anything.
My two cents: set goals, work to accomplish them. "Focused attention" doesn't live in a vacuum, it only exists if there is something on which to be focused. Find that thing, pursue it. Keep track of what's distracting you, do your best to remove those distractions.
More pragmatically: get rid of social media if you haven't already. You don't have to go dead, just stop logging in every day. My own path was: delete the apps off my phone, stop logging in as often, stop caring about logging in as often, stop caring about the service as much.
OK you got me here's a bunch of advice :)
Re: The attention economy
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Take care of your body because your brain is part of your body. 1) Get yourself on a sleep schedule. Figure out if you need 7.5 hours, 8 hours, or 9 hours of sleep. Then, pick a time to go to sleep and a time to wake up and stick to it for both weekends and weekdays. You will have exceptions, but it should be the baseline to which you return. If you find you are consistently tired, see a doctor and check if you have…
I've tried apps but invariably I end up seeking alternatives to get around the blockers I set for myself. Internet is like alcohol for me so it's only fitting that I am the most productive in Internet free zones.
To get around SelfControl requires digging into the source code of the program. This requires at least as much focus+determination as doing the work you are supposed to be doing.
Re: The attention economy
#49I got into work mode the past couple years of my life and spent most time either working or speaking with people, then browsing my phone in the downtimes / before bed / first thing in the morning. I hadn't read a book in a couple of years and it was scary the first time I tried again. Literally could not read more than 1 - 1.5 pages without my mind wandering or feeling the pang to check the feed on my phone. Kind of…
For me it helps when I ask myself, two hours after browsing HN for example: What did I read today there that sticked?
stuck*
That is a great metric btw. I usually do this at the end of the day on the ride back home from work when my dad and I discuss things we read that day
Re: The attention economy
#50This is similar to an argument made in Cal Newport's book Deep Focus. He also goes on to argue that since we are living in an attention-deficit economy in a time when it is needed most, learning to dig out these distractions is becoming more invaluable. Great book if anyone is interested in becoming more focused and less distracted like this article suggests.
Loved the book, motivated me to cut out a lot of distractions in my daily work life, as well as take control in adjusting websites more to my needs (Writing small, custom tamper monkey javascript snippets to edit views of, for example, Facebook) Just a small addendum, the book is called "Deep Work", not "Deep Focus"
Thank you for correction, it is indeed called "Deep Work".