Attention
But if the deep roots of boredom are in a lack of meaning, rather than a shortage of stimuli, and if there is a subtle, multilayered process by which information can give rise to meaning, then the constant flow of information to which we are becoming habituated cannot deliver on such a promise. At best, it allows us to distract ourselves with the p... See more
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
Attention is not just another “cognitive function”: it is... the disposition adopted by one’s consciousness towards the world. Absent, present, detached, engaged, alienated, empathic, broad or narrow, sustained or piecemeal, it therefore has the power to alter whatever it meets. Since our consciousness plays some part in what comes into being, the ... See more
Maria Popova • How We Render Reality: Attention as an Instrument of Love
... 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
There are two parts of attention: grabbing it and holding it. It is easier to grab attention than to hold it. - Chris Hayes
... 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
Attending to people and having them attend to us is our normal state of being. Social attention is like sunlight for a plant: we needed to live. It warms and nourishes us. We stretch toward its presence; we shrivel in its absence.
The Sirens Call
“..patterns of attention — what we choose to notice and what we do not — are how we render reality for ourselves, and thus have a direct bearing on what we feel is possible at any given time. These aspects, taken together, suggest to me the revolutionary potential of taking back our attention” [Jenny Odell]
The discomfort of giving ourselves over to meaningful activities is what leads us towards distraction (Sacasas)