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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

#81

Post by maxxxxx »

eswat wrote: post #75
maxxxxx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If people have to really on this kind of programming to be aware of news they are in pretty bad shape ....

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#82

Post by beat »

I've cut most social media and cell phone use out of my life (I still allow myself HN and a particular musician's forum).

Something that drives me nuts now is people staring at their phones while ostensibly hanging out with me and being social. I have a couple of friends who are hardcore Pokemon Go players, and I can't go anywhere with them without them constantly hunting for Pokemon on their phones (or checking FB, or whatever).

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#83

Post by ambicapter »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #58
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…

> I’d take an hour of staring at a wall over an hour of Hacker News any day, if I was trying specifically to drum up ideas for something to hack on. I feel like this misses the point because you're still looking at it through the lens of productivity, albeit a step removed from "writing code" kind of productivity. In your example you're still doing something -- "trying specifically to drum up ideas for something to h…

That sounds like something Slavoj Zizek would say. Capitalism is the cornerstone of American culture, so everything we do easily falls into a "pump up those numbers" mindset.

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#85

Post by asdff »

basetop wrote: post #26

Isn't the author and the nytimes part of the attention economy? By reading the article and commenting on it, aren't we partaking in rather than resisting the attention economy? It's put us in a bind. In order to learn about resisting the attention economy, we have to join it.

The attention economy is engagement metrics and trying to maximize the amount of time your eyes are fixed on an ad in effort to sway you to hand over your income or vote. Facebook isn't in the business of making the site more useful to you, they are in the business of making you spend more time on the site in ways that increase your engagement with advertising. I wouldn't equate it to NY times and other world class publications, which rely on continually appeasing subscribers who are expecting informative content. With facebook, you are the resource to be exploited and sold and the advertisers are the customer to be wooed.

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#86

Post by Theodores »

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.

The key thing is electricity. Spend 48 hours on your own without it (and without any preparation).

The first 24 will have you eeking out the last bit of battery from gadgets. You can also turn in early for the night, listening to a battery powered radio.

Then in the second 24 hours, with no electricity, see what happens. You might use the daylight hours to tidy up or fix a few broken things. You might read those books that have been collecting dust. You might actually write something with pen and paper. Food is cold, beverages are cold. There is no power shower. Daylight hours matter, you have to get whatever it is you are doing done before it is dark.

48 hours is about enough. You can remind yourself in that time how 24/7 media distractions don't really help. When you get back online none of those missed emails and notifications really mattered. It feels like a mini-holiday has been had. Warm food tastes great again, as does tea/coffee.

Turning off a phone for a few hours only gets you part way into the digital detox experience, flicking the big electricity switch and keeping it off for more than a day is much more enlightening.

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#88

Post by MayeulC »

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,…

I recently bought a minitel for something like 3€, and would like to convert this dumb terminal into a workstation for when I have to write long reports, distraction-free.

1200 bauds, plain-text ought to be enough for writing something in vim+latex, while setting this up could give me a meaningful project to spend some time on... I must say it has been collecting dust for now, while I procrastinate on HN (not entirely true, but I found that I tend to junk-fill my free time with consuming content and writing "internet conmments" like a fastfood addict).

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#89

Post by bumby »

novaleaf wrote: post #77
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 is interesting. I assume there's a balance to be had between being introduced to new ideas through something like a podcast/audiobook and having enough downtime to ruminate on those ideas for more meaningful insight.

Re: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

#90

Post by asdff »

code_duck wrote: post #42
vonmoltke wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to quit cigarettes.

I smoked cigars and cigarillos for some time and it’s essentially the same. Maybe worse - you can easily fill an hour with a cigar. No idea about chewing or snuff I suppose.

People I know who've quit dip did it by making themselves sick, packing a huge lip and swallowing instead of spitting. Usually ends in puke. Now just a whiff of the stuff makes them gag.
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