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Our attention span is being robbed

unstructed.tech

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Re: Our attention span is being robbed

#41

Post by sbmthakur »

wincy wrote: post #17
epolanski wrote: post #4

We know this already, but I wonder what the remedies are. My SO can barely watch a movie or tv show before she gets back to infinite scrolling socials, it's a disaster. 5 minutes is the most she can do. Going out with me or friends is the same, few minutes and she's back checking emails and socials. I decided to lead by example and delete all socials, even reddit or linkedin, but it's impossible.

My family has taken inspiration from Orthodox Jews. At sunset we take all our devices and put them in a cabinet, turned off. Nobody can even call us on the phone. We have a big fancy dinner with fancy silverware and invite people over. Nobody is allowed to have their devices turned on. Until sunset on Sunday we just hang out or do whatever we wanted to do anyway, just with zero screens. We end up reading books, playi…

What if a friend/relative/acquaintance wants to contact you for an emergency?

Re: Our attention span is being robbed

#44

Post by civilized »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #36

I couldn't make it through the article because it seemed to be suffering from the same symptoms (so many 1 sentence paragraphs!) was that the point, and I cut out too early?

Somewhere in the middle he mentions feeling like having ADHD and I'm like "yeah, getting that vibe too"

Re: Our attention span is being robbed

#45

Post by twstdzppr »

> Maybe something that I’ve learned in therapy COULD be entertained as a possibility. It’s a technique that I don’t even know HOW it’s called but it boils down to dedicating 45mins to grievance. As in – you dedicate 45mins per day when you can focus on grieving (e.g. over a failed relationship) and at any other time of the day you have to delay doing it until your 45-mins-of-grief time comes.

45min-1hr of mindfulness training would be more effective, I would think

Re: Our attention span is being robbed

#46

Post by civilized »

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #11

I found https://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-work/ useful for thinking about this, and developing an awareness of where my attention goes. I use https://bulletjournal.com/ in a paper notebook. I use https://orgmode.org/ on my personal and work computers.

I just googled "bullet journal" and had to scroll through four screens of nonsense to get to a search result, the Wikipedia article on it.

Re: Our attention span is being robbed

#47

Post by tomrod »

judah wrote: post #35

Thinking out loud here...is it possible to use the same patterns for good? Like, infinite scroll, bite-sized chunk UI, etc. that trick our minds into reading a full book?

I've always been frustrated by the Kindle App for this very reason. It should be infinite scroll!

Re: Our attention span is being robbed

#48

Post by scubbo »

wincy wrote: post #17
epolanski wrote: post #4

We know this already, but I wonder what the remedies are. My SO can barely watch a movie or tv show before she gets back to infinite scrolling socials, it's a disaster. 5 minutes is the most she can do. Going out with me or friends is the same, few minutes and she's back checking emails and socials. I decided to lead by example and delete all socials, even reddit or linkedin, but it's impossible.

My family has taken inspiration from Orthodox Jews. At sunset we take all our devices and put them in a cabinet, turned off. Nobody can even call us on the phone. We have a big fancy dinner with fancy silverware and invite people over. Nobody is allowed to have their devices turned on. Until sunset on Sunday we just hang out or do whatever we wanted to do anyway, just with zero screens. We end up reading books, playi…

This is a lovely idea! My partner and I regularly take "Digital Detoxes" - weekend-long periods of no internet connectivity (initially we intended "no technology", but loosened that to permit eBooks or a single pre-planned pre-downloaded movie), and it's always a refreshing experience.

Re: Our attention span is being robbed

#49

Post by entropie »

duncan-donuts wrote: post #26
wincy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family has taken inspiration from Orthodox Jews. At sunset we take all our devices and put them in a cabinet, turned off. Nobody can even call us on the phone. We have a big fancy dinner with fancy silverware and invite people over. Nobody is allowed to have their devices turned on. Until sunset on Sunday we just hang out or do whatever we wanted to do anyway, just with zero screens. We end up reading books, playi…

My wife is a new chicken farmer. For the last year I’ve spent most of my weekends in the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but open sky and animals. Even when everything sucks, nothing is working, and I hate everything I still love working out there. I never look at my phone. No one ever calls me because the only people that matter are there working with me. The more I’m outside away from my day to day life the…

Bonus: I bet you have some good chicken.

That sounds really awesome.

When I have my dogs around I usually don't miss human interaction. I go like daily in the woods with my dogs and avoid my phone. My GF is more like the one in the top comment + she has ADHS. We live together in a completely different world there.

Re: Our attention span is being robbed

#50

Post by _mhr_ »

twstdzppr wrote: post #45

> Maybe something that I’ve learned in therapy COULD be entertained as a possibility. It’s a technique that I don’t even know HOW it’s called but it boils down to dedicating 45mins to grievance. As in – you dedicate 45mins per day when you can focus on grieving (e.g. over a failed relationship) and at any other time of the day you have to delay doing it until your 45-mins-of-grief time comes. 45min-1hr of mindfulness…

What's your favorite resource for learning mindfulness?
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