Attention
... See moreThey waste our time for their benefit. When you understand it like that, spam isn't a side problem or trivial problem; it is the problem of our time. Spam is all the things we don't want to pay attention to that want our attention. Spam arises from the tension between the two foundational facts of the attention age: information is infinite, attenti
... See moreThis rearrangement of social and economic conditions around the pursuit of attention is, I'm going to argue, a transformation as profound as the dawn of industrial capitalism and the creation of wage labor as the central form of human toil. Attention now exists as a commodity in the same way labor did in the early years of industrial capitalism.
The
... See moreA commodity is any resource that has what economists call "substantial fungibility," where each instance is indistinguishable from another. Each barrel of crude oil is interchangeable with every other barrel of crude oil…Once something is transformed into a commodity, it unlocks its potential to be traded on markets, to be swapped and transferred a
The experience of boredom is contingent. It is culturally, socially, and institutionally produced…Our age features a set of technologies and social conditions that work together to maximize our boredom if we are not constantly diverted from it.
The Sirens Call
the effort to draw closer to the astonishing reality of things, through those forms of pure attention that are unmixed with evaluations of utility and judgment, and free from the deforming grasp of a seizing hand (or eye or mind).
The Friends of Attention • TWELVE THESES ON ATTENTION
What we need to survive is more than mere attention: we need care. But attention is a necessary precondition for care. In this way, we are creatures whose very survival depends on attention. We perish in neglect. As part of that inescapable inheritance, we will forever be invested in other people paying attention to us. We are creatures that pay at
... See moreIn, “Stand Out Of Our Light,” former Google employee and Oxford philosopher James Williams identifies three levels of attention: spotlight, starlight, and daylight.
1. Spotlight: This level of attention pertains to our immediate capacities for navigating awareness and action toward tasks. It enables us to do what we want to do
2. Starlight: Thi
... See more... See moreI've been using the term "attentional regime" to describe some set of rules, norms, or structures that govern attention in any given setting. They can be the most basic regime of turn-taking in conversation or the more complex rules of floor time in the US Senate. But whatever they are, participants have some knowledge of the rules and some level o
... See moreAfter a lot of trial and error, I now view audience attention as something like the wind that powers a sailboat. It's a real phenomenon, independent of the boat, and you can successfully sail only if you harness it. You don't turn the boat into the wind, but you also don't simply allow the wind to set your course. You figure out where you want to g