We need to reclaim our attention
theguardian.com
We need to reclaim our attention
1–10 of 458 posts
Re: We need to reclaim our attention
#2This for me is key, these sorts of problems cannot just be solved on an individual level. They are systemic.
"Individual abstinence is “not the solution, for the same reason that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at bay, but it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t address the systemic issues.” He said that our attention is being deeply altered by huge invasive forces in wider society. Saying the solution was to just adjust your own habits – to pledge to break up with your phone, say – was just “pushing it back on to the individual” he said, when “it’s really the environmental changes that will really make the difference”."
Re: We need to reclaim our attention
#3This is a major reason why I am bearish about online learning. I do love the accessibility of MOOCs, but I have to watch the videos multiple times to deeply understand the concepts, and I have to print out the assignments in order to really play with the ideas and solve them in a way that makes me grow. I prefer whenever possible to buy books. I'm not a bibliophile; I just do MUCH better when the target of my attention can't throw alerts at me or show me ads.
Re: We need to reclaim our attention
#4No post body was provided.
Re: We need to reclaim our attention
#5I’ve said for years that the 20th century saw humanity for the first time having to learn to live in a world of infinite sugar, fat and salt.
The 21st century will be about learning to live in a world of infinite information.
We will all have to be mindful of whether we are consuming the mental equivalent of broccoli, donuts or anthrax.
Re: We need to reclaim our attention
#6This for me is key, these sorts of problems cannot just be solved on an individual level. They are systemic. "Individual abstinence is “not the solution, for the same reason that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at bay, but it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t address the systemic issues.” He said that our attentio…
Except I have no choice but to walk through an area which might be polluted. I do have a choice to not read news sites for four hours a day.
The article fails to define both the problem and the solution.
How exactly this “attention theft” causes significant negative societary consequences is defined extremely vaguely, and almost exclusively through personal anecdotes.
The offered solutions, forcing employers to respect working hours and forcing social media companies to change their business models, are borderline non-sequiturs to the article’s thesis.
There is a comment about this possibly being a new “moral panic”, which the author dismisses out of hand. Yet in the same article, he implies his son dropped out of school at 15 because of WhatsApp.
Re: We need to reclaim our attention
#7This for me is key, these sorts of problems cannot just be solved on an individual level. They are systemic. "Individual abstinence is “not the solution, for the same reason that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at bay, but it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t address the systemic issues.” He said that our attentio…
> It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at bay, but it’s not sustainable
And yet we have worn masks for months at least. If the price of a free internet is the equivalent of wearing a gasmask then I would rather do that, at least until we we have the equivalent of the nano-robot immunesystem from the Diamond Age.
If we let the government make the rules here we will lose the last place where we can play freely, and will almost certainly not solve the problem we wanted to be solved.
Re: We need to reclaim our attention
#8There is a veritable war going on for your attention, and the battlefields are your eyeballs, your ears and ultimately your brain. Psychologists have been enlisted, as they are in every war to try to win it for 'their side', be it one of the big silos or some dying TV or newspaper era behemoth, there is no reasonable way in which you can withstand that kind of frontal onslaught. The only way to really deal with this is to not participate.
Beware or you too will be collateral damage on the balance sheets of these media conglomerates. Unmediated reality is still there for you to peruse, but 'augmented reality' will be the next big wave for tech and I'm pretty sure that it will end up being used mostly for advertising purposes.
Re: We need to reclaim our attention
#9The five aspects of HELPFUL software… we as developers need to build it into all our software:
Re: We need to reclaim our attention
#10The problem isn't as much that social media is addictive. The issue is that people aren't happy with their other options of what to do. If you have a draining job and don't have energy to put into a hobby, or you don't have lots of friends to hang out with, you're much more likely to waste time on something addictive.