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We need to reclaim our attention

theguardian.com

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Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#151

Post by thegrimmest »

sascha_sl wrote: post #143
thegrimmest wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that economic system is built on barely 2 century old philosophy you take for granted. It is not "human nature". If you could argue for any political system to be "human nature" it would be feudalism or anarchism-without-adjectives. What is being sacrificed? Equal starting conditions to start with. Wealth in capitalism tends to concentrate. Social mobility exists, but it is severely limited. Exploitation through…

I'm not arguing that it's "human nature". I'm arguing there's no such thing. I'm arguing that we are fundamentally decision-making agents.

> Equal starting conditions to start with

Equal conditions are not a prerequisite for liberty. They are in fact impossible to define and impossible to impose. You can be destitute and free, and you can be pampered and enslaved. The Darwinian nature of a free economic system isn't imposed, it's an emergent property of any system where scarce resources are competed for by living beings. As in any Darwinian system, the optimal behavior for the successful is to maximally exploit their success, to pull-up the ladder, so to speak.

Everything else you've said just betrays your religion: "Workers should be able to build houses". "Healthcare should be regulated so people can afford it". I don't think it's unreasonable to disagree here. In my religion, I'd prefer to die in agony rather than pry greedily into the pocket of an unwilling stranger. Why is your religion better than mine?

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#152

Post by Apocryphon »

fullshark wrote: post #146
Apocryphon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't necessarily mean a problem as a matter of taste, more a destruction of shared cultural values, in particular those that are good for "society" like a belief in the value of work, family unit, deeper concerns than material wealth (e.g. god/spirituality) etc at least in the west / America.

The spread of low brow culture might potentially come at the expense of traditional local cultures, but any cultural expansion means the creation of a new shared culture, no? In which case the issue then becomes what the values does this culture valorize.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#153

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #136
Aromasin wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I've read, based on research around attention and focus behaviors, the context switching element of it is the most dangerous part in terms of developing ADHD type behaviors, and I agree that TV and radio doesn't even scratch the amount of switching that happens with modern social media. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, etc. All of them make you switch context every 30 seconds or less, often for hours on…

Documents, radio, television, internet, social media. Baby steps.

Towards what? The loss of individual agency and the creation of some kind of collective organism?

Maybe there will be a time for that, but I'm thinking that if we let it happen now, that organism will be an idiot.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#154

Post by tomjen3 »

Apocryphon wrote: post #139
tomjen3 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ca…

Regardless if the solution is government intervention, it seems rather funny to say the modern internet is a place that all entrants can play freely. It’s changed quite a bit since when The Diamond Age was first written.

We can play freely, invent new solutions and approaches without having the government test their safety, without having to get special approval by anybody.

I am aware of the bias of large companies that stops certain people from building, which is why I wrote play.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#155

Post by bittercynic »

jacquesm wrote: post #23
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".

Sure. And then, at the end of every youtube video a whole slew of totally unrelated trashy videos that are perfectly produced to produce maximum engagement and eye candy will hijack your attention and steal another 3 hours before you even notice that they're gone because of the in-your-face nature of the recommendations. Wouldn't it be great if all youtube did was just store and replay videos? But it doesn't, it's an…

Not a complete solution, but I like to block the elements that are most distracting to me.

  www.youtube.com##.html5-endscreen
  .ytp-pause-overlay
  www.youtube.com###secondary

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#156

Post by Retric »

wwweston wrote: post #145
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…

> One reason so many people think they have ADHD is because they make that mistake. Speaking of which: has anyone had the experience where they sought to be evaluated for ADHD and the professional they went to said "nope, this doesn't look like ADHD"? I'm wondering if there are criteria people use to exclude ADHD as a diagnosis, or if the assumption is that if people are seeking diagnosis/treatment that they're exper…

I don’t know about adults, but parents are often told their children don’t have ADHD. Various estimates place prevalence at around 4% which is common, but not that common.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#157

Post by zippystrider »

jacquesm wrote: post #52
batch12 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. People talk about addiction to social media or other attention-farming software, but not many people really take it seriously. People think they are unicorns and while some can get addicted or manipulated-- they think "not me. I am too savvy." As long this issue just keeps getting shrugged off as a new version of tv-is-bad hysteria 'media' companies will keep making their dollars and enslaving the minds of the t…

One form this takes is that people with some regularity claim that 'all this advertising doesn't work on them' while having an iPhone, ridiculously over-priced in ear headphones, designer clothes with large logos on them and shoes with very visible branding. Advertising works, on everybody. The only way to get to a level playing field is to filter it out of your life as much as possible. The only thing I haven't foun…

>The only thing I haven't found a solution for is billboards and radios and TVs playing in places that I have no control over.

This might sound silly, but I deliberately train my eyes to avoid looking at advertisements on posters whenever I take public transit (not completely successful, but it does reduce exposure).

For radio advertisements, that's what the 'over-priced in ear headphones' are for (admittedly a luxury and not a necessity as I could achieve the same effect with earplugs or cheap, noise-isolating earphones, but I enjoy the high-quality music).

TVs are the most difficult because they easily catch attention due to the moving picture. I also try to avoid looking at them like billboards when I go to the gym (plenty of TVs) and turn off the display whenever using the treadmill, but it's a conscious decision I make before walking in.

Also, for what it's worth, I don't think the value of iPhones are overstated by advertising. I purchased my first one after reading a book by an academic about the lack of privacy in technology. It was a suitable option for a phone that's relatively private while working with relatively easy setup (versus most Linux phones). So, iPhone usage may reduce the effectiveness of targeted ads by collecting less data to use for advertisers.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#158

Post by amoorthy »

I built a news app (The Factual) that sends only 1 notification per day for a morning briefing. And the newsfeed is consolidated by topic so that you can easily finish browsing what's newsworthy. The app has a small subscription and zero ads so we don't care how long you view or what you click on. I don't know if we'll succeed but trying to solve this problem.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#159

Post by fullshark »

Apocryphon wrote: post #152
fullshark wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily mean a problem as a matter of taste, more a destruction of shared cultural values, in particular those that are good for "society" like a belief in the value of work, family unit, deeper concerns than material wealth (e.g. god/spirituality) etc at least in the west / America.

The spread of low brow culture might potentially come at the expense of traditional local cultures, but any cultural expansion means the creation of a new shared culture, no? In which case the issue then becomes what the values does this culture valorize.

Yeah and it's not all bad for sure, I think the general acceptance of homosexuality has been a good thing and large cultural shifts certainly made it happen. I do wonder if these shifts are universally good or a mix of positive and negative developments, and the people warning us years ago had some good points.

Re: We need to reclaim our attention

#160

Post by guerrilla »

moonchrome wrote: post #119
batch12 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 deman…

Inconsistent reward is more addictive than consistent reward. This has been known for a long time. That's how they make it addictive.
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