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How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

nytimes.com

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Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#71

Post by threwawasy1228 »

superkuh wrote: post #63
agentultra wrote: post #60

Doing nothing is how I often stayed productive. I used to be able to stay and think about something for hours. If I encountered something difficult I would go for a walk or take a nap. Now that I've been forced, at work, to use Slack day in and out -- I feel like I can't spend 5 minutes without flipping to another window, checking this, checking that. It's counter productive and feels like torture. I get a hangover f…

> The hardest part of doing nothing is learning to live with all the people who can't. Very true. Network effect doesn't only have effects online. I've missed out on quite a bit of real life socialization (friends, community, and business) because I never signed up for Facebook and refuse to carry a cell phone. At least in the last few years people are coming around on Facebook but I still get weird responses to not…

I think the more annoying part is being out in public, there is a vast decline in basic human interaction in places that are meant specifically for that purpose even. It is much harder to meet new people at a bar for example than it was even 5 years ago. The difference is dramatic.

How are you supposed to meet strangers and have interesting conversation when they won't look up long enough to see that you are attempting to make eye contact with them?

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#72

Post by dudul »

jcadam wrote: post #47
mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are times when I just want to sit or lay down and do nothing but my wife wont let me. When asked about her problem with this, she says it’s lazy not to do anything. Somehow doing nothing is wrong and everyone is conditioned to judge you for it.

One of my pet peeves is when someone complains to me about being bored, as if their inability to occupy themselves is my fault and its my job to entertain them. My wife learned this about me early on (I'm an extreme introvert and can happily retreat into my own skull and stay there for hours at a time). Don't come to me and simply say "I'm bored." What am I supposed to do with that? If you have an idea of something y…

Only boring people get bored. You should try this one on your wife :)

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#73

Post by nvusuvu »

FerretFred wrote: post #4
sweetheart wrote: post #2

I feel like the hardest part of learning to do nothing is getting over an initial period where your body and mind is trying to remember how to fill an hour of idle time without Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. I think after long periods of relying on these services to fill pockets of time that are otherwise hard to capitalize on, we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored. Like any form of rehabilitation, it takes ti…

> we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored Yup.. personally I somehow feel it's "wrong" that I sit there and do nothing on the rare occasion I get the opportunity.

I have a 40 minute commute. I have to resist the urge to fill the time with a podcast, radio, TedX. When I do, it's so nice to just let my mind wonder.

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#74

Post by code_duck »

It’s quite possible to use the Internet without paying attention to popular culture. One is not required to consume media, especially not whatever default popular media is commonly served to people. Online, I use this site, listen to obscure music of my choice, and upload and view pictures of desolate buildings on Instagram.

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#75

Post by eswat »

maxxxxx wrote: post #51
eswat wrote: post #20

An office building nearby renovated their ground floor with a new food court. Great idea but they also added a semi-circle of TVs all tuned on CBC News that pretty much looks over most of the seating and the food stalls. It’s hard to avoid. Easy enough to modify the environment on our phones and desktops but it’s more inconvenient to avoid IRL distractions.

It really should be made illegal to put TVs and other noise making devices into the public space. I don’t understand why it’s acceptable to put that stuff everywhere. It’s basically visual and auditory littering, not much different from throwing away trash.

When I talk to others about this their justification is that it helps them be aware of local and world news. But ironically we seem to have more TVs at a time where we have more agency to check the news whenever, wherever anyway.

You’re right in that it’s pretty much is visual/auditory littering at this point.

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#76

Post by wasdfff »

basetop wrote: post #25
jfk13 wrote: post #14

Shouldn't we rather call it the Distraction Economy?

Which is what paperbacks, newspapers, radio, tv, movies, etc were/are called at one time or another. I bet in 20 years, smartphone and social media companies and everyone else will be ranting about VR being a distraction.

Sure but at least with a paperback or movie you are wasting time learning a little bit about the world or appreciating someones art. There are people who are getting all their news from misleading social media posts and comments. People used to read news articles and get a nuanced understanding of the world, now they read and share racist memes and we wonder why politics have never been more polarized.

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#77

Post by novaleaf »

agentultra wrote: post #60

Doing nothing is how I often stayed productive. I used to be able to stay and think about something for hours. If I encountered something difficult I would go for a walk or take a nap. Now that I've been forced, at work, to use Slack day in and out -- I feel like I can't spend 5 minutes without flipping to another window, checking this, checking that. It's counter productive and feels like torture. I get a hangover f…

somewhat similar: I used to occupy all my "down time" with podcasts or audiobooks. While mildly interesting, I found that it removes all "cognitive introspection" opportunities, so that the only time available for tat is when I'm trying to fall asleep (meaning I had trouble falling asleep!)

So over the last few months I've stopped audiobooks and podcasts (I already don't watch TV).

Kind of counter intuitively, I find this "REAL down time" combined with other physical activities such as jogging and a few minutes of gardening each day provides me with greater self-control.

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#78

Post by 52-6F-62 »

FerretFred wrote: post #4
sweetheart wrote: post #2

I feel like the hardest part of learning to do nothing is getting over an initial period where your body and mind is trying to remember how to fill an hour of idle time without Instagram or Twitter or Facebook. I think after long periods of relying on these services to fill pockets of time that are otherwise hard to capitalize on, we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored. Like any form of rehabilitation, it takes ti…

> we unlearn how to simply sit and be bored Yup.. personally I somehow feel it's "wrong" that I sit there and do nothing on the rare occasion I get the opportunity.

I had that experience (not myself) with a former girlfriend.

She vocalized how she thought it was "so indulgent" to lie about for an hour on a late-summer Sunday afternoon in the city.

I grew up in a small, small town and remember a time even in the 90s before there was internet access. And then a time when there was, but it was far from readily accessible.

Entire days could be consumed by riding your bike on country roads past cornfields and sitting at the foot of waterfalls. There was nothing else to do. I read a lot. If that's indulgent I must be the most ugly glutton!

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#79

Post by [deleted] »

p2t2p wrote: post #9

I'm tree weeks into: git clone https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts.git && cd hosts && pip3 install --user -r requirements.txt && python3 updateHostsFile.py --auto --replace --extensions social porn gambling and going strong. What I figured so far is that the trick is to stay away from the browser. So I've removed Safari on my iPhone (well, more like hidden), I've changed my rss client to newsboat - command line one,…

[deleted]

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#80

Post by asdff »

vonmoltke wrote: post #33
code_duck wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>learning to do nothing is getting over an initial period where your body and mind is trying to remember how to fill an hour of idle time That’s essentially the same as trying to quit tobacco.

Trying to quit cigarettes.

Had a pretty fierce nicotine addiction for a while in college. The hardest part was the migraines but once those went away it's been smooth sailing every since.
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