Lots of writing, very little posting! (Or: on continuous partial attention)

July 24, 2006 in books, images, lists, ordinary, science, thought, williams

I have actually been writing quite a bit of late, but not online and not really very much on the computer. I’ll try to let some of it trickle through the WordPress sieve over the next week or so. This site just appeared on BoingBoing this morning and is really really fascinating to me. It’s all about a phenomenon termed Continuous Partial Attention, a sort of addiction to the hyperconnectivity of the modern world.

Continuous partial attention describes how many of us use our attention today. It is different from multi-tasking. The two are differentiated by the impulse that motivates them. When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient. We’re often doing things that are automatic, that require very little cognitive processing. We give the same priority to much of what we do when we multi-task — we file and copy papers, talk on the phone, eat lunch — we get as many things done at one time as we possibly can in order to make more time for ourselves and in order to be more efficient and more productive.

To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter.

We pay continuous partial attention in an effort NOT TO MISS ANYTHING. It is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any place behavior that involves an artificial sense of constant crisis. We are always in high alert when we pay continuous partial attention. This artificial sense of constant crisis is more typical of continuous partial attention than it is of multi-tasking.

That is, it’s analogous to but different from workaholism, another psychological adaptation to the demands of our strange, strange world.

In other news, the plant family is doing well:

• cuttings are rooting!
• basil is coming out!
• fresh lavender growth is delicious!
• hopefully pinching back the lavender doesn’t do too much damage…

I’ve also been completely geek-ing out and reading everything I can get my hands on about the squishy UNIX innards of OS X which is really edifying. I’ve always been curious about what exactly the terminal does/why the hell you would want to use it. I still don’t have a good idea exactly what I might want to accomplish with this new knowledge, but at least I have a bit of a sense of what sorts of things can be done. Hurrah!

A Language History of the World continues to be awesome, and Ruth’s dad suggested another language-y, cognitive science-y book, The Harmonic Mind, which looks even denser and cooler than the one I’m on now.

Last but not least, Ruth put up a cool series of photos that you should definitely check out.

Sorry for the long post, o intrepid reader, and have a wonderful evening!