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We need to reclaim our attention

theguardian.com

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Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#111

Post by Apocryphon »

fullshark wrote: post #102
slibhb wrote: post #42

> Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky. I agree with them. It's hard to pay attention to something for long unless it's entertaining. Reading a book, reading a paper, etc -- these activities take discipline that most people don't develop or don't often apply. This isn't new. The mista…

Another possibility: the moral panic about comic books / rap music / low brow culture was justified and its ubiquity has done active harm to our society.

Certainly without comic books, comic book movies wouldn’t have eaten Hollywood

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#112

Post by dento »

jarvist wrote: post #28
wrnr wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire way the old media reports on the new media is unironical scaremongering about how the internet is hacking the fear response of your amygdala. They should instead be positive and publish articles like "Here are 10 youtube channels that go into more depth that the master program of any university".

Could you point me in the direction of a single YouTube channel that goes into more depth than a Masters program? Other than occasional captured lectures, everything 'educational' on YouTube seems to me to be optimising for that TED-style sense of wonder / happy familiarisation with the content, which is poorly associated with learning outcomes.

https://www.youtube.com/c/AndreasKling

Kling is building an operating system and a web browser, and frequently relases videos about the work. Most go through development of a single feature. The videos are unedited to show all of the development steps: design, implementation and debugging. A Masters program usually has more theory and larger scope, but this is more hands-on and in-depth.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#113

Post by watwut »

wott wrote: post #78
abledon wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

whenever the power goes off in my house for long periods, its as if some super power hits and i can read books with a new found attention span

Yeah, when we are lucky to have a several days long Internet breakage at home (we don't use cellular Internet), all of a sudden things which had been 'not possible' or 'so hard' or 'so tiring' for months or years suddenly become possible or normal or even obvious. We even manage to do things together with family members. Imagine!

Is that really so? Because I do find myself at situations when I don't turn on internet and none of that happens.

Books are as boring as with internet, I just don't like them anymore. I don't end up doing something all that great as a result.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#114

Post by ropeladder »

ModernMech wrote: post #73
nabla9 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but it's always the same story. This is the reverse slippery slope fallacy. There is no threshold, no effect size where this tuns net negative, etc. We took these 10 steps, were worried and nothing happened, we can do more steps.

Does this fallacy have a name? The rough incline fallacy?

The "there is no cliff" fallacy?

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#115

Post by xwdv »

hackingthelema wrote: post #67

I often wonder what the world would be like if the Buddhist sciences of the mind (e.g. mindfulness) were taught at all levels of society, as a priority, and TFA mentions it near the end, to say it's not enough: > Meditation is a useful tool – but we actually need to stop the people who are pouring itching powder on us. We need to band together to take on the forces stealing our attention and take it back. I'd argue t…

One way that would really help achieve better mental hygiene for the masses would be if we had some sort of sensors that could detect when a person’s attention is being diverted away from the task at hand, and remind them to refocus. A person could then see a sort of screen time type summary of how long they are being productive and when they are wasting time on mindless garbage. Perhaps even employers could provide bonuses to those workers who maintain the highest productivity times, which over time would encourage people to improve their mindfulness in day to day life.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#116

Post by mwattsun »

Swizec wrote: post #105
mwattsun wrote: post #100

I had a dream last night that expressed my recent concern that Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are Pied Pipers leading our kids into virtual worlds where Meta controls everything including allowable expression and thought, where even certain concepts are banned with no allowable word for them [1]. My concern is that kids are getting VR headsets and going to a place where there is no parental control because adults don't und…

> kids are getting VR headsets and going to a place where there is no parental control because adults don't understand VR or how to join their kids there Sounds like early social media. Hanging out without parents was the crucial feature. I’m 34 now and having parents on social media still feels like an odd concept

I had to ask myself why VR was different and it's because there's no screen that a parent can monitor. Once a child puts the glasses on, who knows where they go are where they are? I think parents will demand a screencast feature built in so they can at least watch what their kids are doing.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#117

Post by thegrimmest »

sascha_sl wrote: post #110
thegrimmest wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that "good, desirable or natural" are not real . They are not concrete things that we can derive from observations about the world. They are akin to religions beliefs. Reasonable people can hold opposing views, and there is no oracle to divine the one truth. Given this situation, the only reasonable way forward seems to be tolerance of the full diversity of belief, and refrain from imposing one's own beli…

This is why I wanted to avoid this discussion. Because philosophically, I really don't disagree with this statement, but the discussion has pivoted past the important part, where we talk about whether total economic freedom is itself ideology (or "an imposition of belief"). It doesn't exist in a vaccum. It is a way to maximize one particular aspect of freedom, but at the expense of other aspects. You will always have…

I'm curious how you would categorize total economic freedom in any sense an "imposition of belief". It is simply absence of any imposition into the economic realm. What other aspects are being sacrificed in order to maximise this aspect? I'm not sure the paradox of tolerance is a statement of fact.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#118

Post by kqr »

trwhite wrote: post #109
slibhb wrote: post #42

> Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky. I agree with them. It's hard to pay attention to something for long unless it's entertaining. Reading a book, reading a paper, etc -- these activities take discipline that most people don't develop or don't often apply. This isn't new. The mista…

Video games are immensely addictive. The burst of adrenaline some of the recent online FPS' give me doesn't compare to any other feeling or experience I've had as a human being. They didn't just happen to be this way. They have been designed to be so thrilling that normal life cannot compete.

Is adrenaline really involved significantly in addiction, other than in specific people who enjoy that sort of thrill? As far as my own experience goes, adrenaline is uncomfortable and something I avoid all else equal.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#119

Post by moonchrome »

batch12 wrote: post #55
slibhb wrote: post #42

> Some scientists say these worries about attention are a moral panic, comparable to the anxieties in the past about comic books or rap music, and that the evidence is shaky. I agree with them. It's hard to pay attention to something for long unless it's entertaining. Reading a book, reading a paper, etc -- these activities take discipline that most people don't develop or don't often apply. This isn't new. The mista…

Respectfully, these examples- radio and TV aren't even in the same league as the manipulation and engagement that comes from the algorithmic feedback loop that backs these services. The comparison is dangerously dismissive.

All this talk about "algorithmic feedback loops" is overselling the quality of said algos (eg. I get more interesting suggestions when I open YT incognito then I do when I'm signed in, I have to scroll through a bunch of stuff I have 0 interest on FB when I open it, etc.) and their importance.

It's completely missing the actual attention grabbing factor here - there's a huge amount of content for consumption on demand in those networks. Unlike TV or radio where at most you could have 100s of channels simultaneously available, there's billions of articles/videos/posts/songs/articles/etc. available with a few clicks.

At best algos get you there faster.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#120

Post by zentropia »

V-2 wrote: post #93
Nathanba wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely TV and radio also have algorithms behind them determining how to increase viewership. Facebook and Instagram do the same but in realtime with more knobs to turn. I personally don't quite understand how somebody can get addicted to social media but I understand video games and I would support some kind of government bureau that determines the addictiveness of a game and puts a label on it. For example games tha…

Chess is very addictive, and certainly endless. Same with cardgames. I'm sure your government bureau would quite grow fast, coming up with ever more warning labels.

Do we have an epidemic of chess?
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