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Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

theguardian.com

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Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#111

Post by brigadier132 »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #109
brigadier132 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, the words personal responsibility are frowned upon nowadays since our priority is comfort and 0 judgement. You can choose whether to believe you are in control or choose not to. If you choose not to dont be surprised when you fail to achieve your goals.

Ah yes just choose it. Like you can just choose to be rich. Just do X or Y! Easy! Good god, so many people here are basically being manifestation coaches. “Just believe you are rich and the universe will make sure you are!”.

> Like you can just choose to be rich. Just do X or Y!

The argument is in opposition to “just lie down and take it and whine about it on the internet”.

So you want to be rich but are not, you can either try to do things that will make you rich or just do nothing. One has a non zero chance at success and the other has zero chance at success

Also i get its not easy. Ive struggled with it myself and have been diagnosed with adhd and was only really able to live to my own standard after being medicated.

And im fine with living with cognitive dissonance around free will and such because i know this path will lead to me living a happier more fulfilling life.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#112

Post by tomjen3 »

cptroot wrote: post #45
apsurd wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with this article it seems. It's thought provoking. Worth the read. But the conclusion is rather underwhelming: it's an environment & societal problem. Also Big-Co is evil. That's not wrong per-say, but gee-whiz looks like we gotta add it to the growing list of how everything's terrible. The message is good just missed an opportunity to carry over the energy into action. I'll try: since we can't change society s…

One point that the article did land for me was the potential for individual change to be unhelpful. No-phone dinners only work if there isn't any sense of anxiety about not having your phone at dinner. That anxiety only goes away if you have an environment that allows you to unplug. Systemic changes like requiring workplaces to allow employees to have "off times" seem necessary to remove some of the baseline anxietie…

Thats an extreme example to me. I don't think I have ever had a phone dinner, unless we needed to show somebody a picture or take one (and both things are rare).

You can put your phone on a shelf and if somebody calls you, you can pick it up, or call them back later.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#113

Post by milesvp »

generic92034 wrote: post #64
cptroot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One point that the article did land for me was the potential for individual change to be unhelpful. No-phone dinners only work if there isn't any sense of anxiety about not having your phone at dinner. That anxiety only goes away if you have an environment that allows you to unplug. Systemic changes like requiring workplaces to allow employees to have "off times" seem necessary to remove some of the baseline anxietie…

> That anxiety only goes away if you have an environment that allows you to unplug. Systemic changes like requiring workplaces to allow employees to have "off times" seem necessary to remove some of the baseline anxieties many of us have. Are there really so many employers requiring employees to be permanently on-call? I would only consider working in such an environment if they would be paying enough to retire in a…

I suspect yes. You may not see it in your industry, but I see it a lot in the creative space. Anecdotally, I know there’s an expectation when working for a video production company that you are constantly available to react to clients. And that since much of the work is contracted to people who work odd hours, being a producer is an always on kind of job.

As for how common it is? dunno, but there was a very funny (sad?) music video that hints that this is fairly widespread phenomena, for young office workers. Quarter Life Poetry, “Circle Back”. One of the final scenes is the narrator being unable to get away from the grind even at home.

https://youtu.be/XXt1-qEjKlE?si=ps3iSQZBVYMweN83

edit: warning slightly crass

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#114

Post by milesvp »

safety1st wrote: post #101
don-code wrote: post #82

I developed a pathological need to monitor Slack at all hours. It was largely based on the culture at my company (a startup, at the time) - while there was no written rule to install Slack on your phone, responding to Slack messages at 10pm was clearly a way to get ahead at the company. I switched jobs and continued to run Slack on my phone, as everybody seems to do. Some time in 2021, I got a new phone and just... d…

So I run a remote-first company and our team is all over the globe. We had some people (including me) who had this issue at one point. I solved it by establishing two expectations: 1) No one is expected to be on Slack outside of their work hours. Full stop, pretty much. 2) Everyone must provide their personal mobile number to the company. They're all stored in an "emergency directory" (it's just a Google Doc). If the…

Being able to tell a client when you can get back to them will go a very long way towards mitigating their needs. For them it may be urgent, but knowing when it will get someone’s full attention, I’ve found is often enough. It’s basically saying someone is on this, and it’s in their priority list. It feels almost magical every time I’ve done it. The trick is having someone who can triage at odd hours in a way that doesn’t purpetuate the problem of having people be on when they shouldn’t.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#115

Post by tomjen3 »

underlipton wrote: post #51

There seem to be a lot of comments cluck-clucking about personal responsibility, and government intervention is bad, and the way this is written is off-putting, and- And no acknowledgment about how many on here can't really give an unqualified opinion because of where their paychecks originate. I can, though, and here it is: We've done this before, with cigarette companies, treating them with kid gloves and trying to…

Do you want to ban phones in public or do you want to hit the social media companies?

Because I would really hate it if I had to not use my phone to take pictures and do direction and listen to podcasts because some people spend too much time on Facebook.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#116

Post by milesvp »

WalterBright wrote: post #92
jasona99 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Allow me to point out the millions of immigrants that walk across a continent to try and slip over the border into America. Sure, but even when they get to America, unless they already have some degree of monetary means, a large portion of those immigrants will end up stuck in low-paying, high-labor jobs, often in agriculture and heavy industry, without savings or means to move elsewhere for years. Those paths to b…

I made the acquaintance of an Afghan refugee who got out with nothing but his skin a couple years ago. He was operating a thriving car service. I had little doubt he'd be a millionaire soon. > this is not their fault for simply being born in an area I never said it was their fault for where they were born. But once they are legal adults, they can move. > especially to a higher cost of living area Seattle being a high…

You are not wrong. Part of why I’m a huge fan of immigration, is that the numbers show that every major wave of immigration the US has encountered led to massive GDP growth. Immigrants tend to be net savers.

But, I believe it’s important to make immigration a little hard. Why? because it acts as a filter, that ensures that more capable immigrants are more likely to make it through.

I say this, because correlation is not causation. The people who are able to emigrate are more likely to be successful immigrants. So please be a little careful with confirmation bias. I tend to agree that moving out of a bad situation is a very good idea. I also know sometimes a bad situation is something you have to deal with. Some people really do have obligations that keep them tied to a location, often in the form of family (and I say this as a believer in dropping toxic family members).

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#117

Post by milesvp »

sph wrote: post #53
WalterBright wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In our modern society, everyone is a victim and it's always someone else's fault. My opinion that people in America do have choices and their lives are the sum of those choices inevitably elicits a lot of rather angry responses. All the people I've gotten to know over the years are all where they are as a result of their choices. The interesting thing about deciding to own your choices is it's empowering - you can ch…

Everything is easy if you trivialise it enough. This is why self-help books are America's #1 genre and literary export. Real life, on the other hand, is a tad more complicated. The rule of thumb is don't waste time with people that think they have all the answers. Either they're lying to you, hopelessly naive, or have no real life experience. > Drug addicted? Treatment is available > Criminal record? Start your own b…

I’ve been following the poverty finance subreddit recently. One thing that stood out to me recently was how often people who know they’re poor “waste money” on things that I would never spend money on. And the threads around it all seem to come down to some variant on this is my one luxury without it I might slit my wrists. Not all the sentiments are this extreme but I think it points to something in the human condition. Being poor is hard, and if there is nothing to look forward to, like what’s the point? It’s easy to ignore morale as a need, like sleeping and eating, but it’s there. And sometimes it’s more important to fill this need than to increase your savings rate by a negligible amount.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#118

Post by dredmorbius »

Falkon1313 wrote: post #91
anolog0 wrote: post #9

Why is it that every time this moral panic is written about, there are no solid studies to back it up? Surely, if there was really a society-wide epidemic of focus, there would be some clear metric for focus which researchers would have 20-30 years of data and studies on, right? This should be a very testable hypothesis, so where is all the hard science on it? Even in this article, the author just takes some statemen…

IIRC, "The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains" had sources at the back. My copy is packed away and it's been awhile since I read it, so I could be wrong, but that's another that you might consider. "Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community" is about a different topic - disconnection from community and social interactions that we used to have, but it's an overlapping topic. It has…

Indeed, "Further Reading", p. 252 of the print edition:

https://archive.org/details/shallowswhatinte0000carr_r4d5/pa...>

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#119

Post by MrVandemar »

WalterBright wrote: post #95
MrVandemar wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I made the acquaintance of an Afghan refugee who got out with nothing but his skin a couple years ago. He was operating a thriving car service. I had little doubt he'd be a millionaire soon. A bit too "n = 1" there. What do the statistics of Afghan immigrants in your country in general show? Do they support your overall argument?

I know two others, from two other countries, who came here with nothing but a suitcase and are now millionaires.

So "n = 3". I enquired as to broad geographic statistics, not anecdotal evidence.

Re: Attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen (2022)

#120

Post by generic92034 »

milesvp wrote: post #113
generic92034 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That anxiety only goes away if you have an environment that allows you to unplug. Systemic changes like requiring workplaces to allow employees to have "off times" seem necessary to remove some of the baseline anxieties many of us have. Are there really so many employers requiring employees to be permanently on-call? I would only consider working in such an environment if they would be paying enough to retire in a…

I suspect yes. You may not see it in your industry, but I see it a lot in the creative space. Anecdotally, I know there’s an expectation when working for a video production company that you are constantly available to react to clients. And that since much of the work is contracted to people who work odd hours, being a producer is an always on kind of job. As for how common it is? dunno, but there was a very funny (sa…

Software developer here, also doing development support work at times. Still, in the last 20 years it never happened that I got a call from work, despite emergencies being pretty common. As it should be, in countries with strong employee rights.
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