what is attention?
From where I am sitting on my balcony I can see the TV out of the corner of my eye and it’s very difficult to ignore it. I keep turning my head away to think of what to write next, but then when I turn back to resume typing on my computer, the flashes of color and light from the TV make it very difficult for me to focus. I just went inside and turned it off, but still my mind keeps diverting attention to the now black rectangle in my peripheral vision. Let me draw the curtains.
Sometimes when I want to be alone I come out and sit here. It’s a lovely little space detached from the living room. However, if Z is sitting at her desk on the other side of the glass where I can see her and if my need to be alone in that moment is particularly potent, I draw the curtains. Her presence remains exactly as it was and I remain aware of it, but it doesn’t intrude on my attention in the same way.
In his book
The World Beyond Your HeadThe World Beyond Your Head (2014)
by Matthew B. Crawford
I heartily agree with Crawford’s emphasis on the importance of embodied experiences and his warning that virtual worlds can promote passivity, technology as magic, and false agency. However. I am also very enthusiastic about technological tools as real tools and virtual worlds as deeply enriching. Consider books for example. They are a virtual, symbolic world of their own and were object of
moral panicin their own time. But I think most of us would consider them indispensable now. Books are fictions divorced from physicality, but is that inherently bad? I don’t think so.
I am several chapters in but already think Crawford’s argument needs work. His critique of “representations” and “abstractions” needs a lot more development in my opinion. I’d invoke him to reflect on his own life to rebalance his argument: he loves to ride motorcycles and fix them up, but he also loves to read books and write them. Surely he needs to make space for symbolic experiences alongside physical ones? I say this despite agreeing with his insight on the surprising hollowness of Choice as Freedom and the way resource-extractive corporations exploit this to harvest wealth from consumers.
All in all I think he makes some fantastic, nuanced points but builds a shaky overarching argument from it. I would love to him to take a second crack at it.
I originally wrote the above on Reddit after reading the first half the book.
As I’ve said
else where, I really appreciated that this book resisted taking the reactionary stance against technology as inherently insidious and unavoidably corruptive of our psychological wellbeing. In the epilogue, Crawford summarizes his alternative critique of technology’s role in leeching on our attention:
The problem…of distraction…is usually discussed as a problem of technology. I [suggest] we view the problem as more fundamentally one of political economy. In a culture saturated with technologies for appropriating our attention, our interior mental lives are laid bare as a resource to be harvested by others. Viewing it this way shifts our gaze from the technology itself to the intention that guides its design and its dissemination into every area of life.
This perspective excites me not just because it rings truer but also because it prevents indiscriminate rejection of technology and instead makes possible a judicious trust that allows us to make good use of it.
, Matthew B. Crawford points out that this involuntary aspect of attention makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint. New information demands attendance. Is it a predator? Prey? Or just a gust of wind? Regardless we must pay attention to it so we can make sense of it and integrate it into our mental model of the current environment.
Crawford appropriates the term ecology – the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings – to describe this fundamental relationship between our attention, our life, and our environment. He describes, for example, the “ecology of attention” in airport lounges where the news stream endlessly on TVs oriented in various directions. Even if the talking heads are muted, the infinite sideways scroll of symbols at the bottom of the screen will hijack the attention of travelers who would rather rest idly.
(Crawford astutely points out that the advertisements shown on these TVs exist to continue the transfer of wealth from these common travelers to the ones in the VIP lounges, who rest comfortably without having their attention exploited by their surroundings without their consent. I find these socioeconomic analyses of technology much more relevant and important than the technophobic ones. The same goes for Artificial Intelligence. I don’t worry that AI will take over the world, I worry that those who already rule the world will use AI to accelerate and automate processes of wealth extraction.)
I think the evolutionary perspective can also help explain why time in nature feels so right. This is the primordial ecology of our attention, the environment in which our brains adapted for us to live and thrive. And yet I don’t think we need to draw purist or atavistic conclusions against technology from this observation. Feelings of connection and coherence arise in us not only from time in nature, but also from time using artificial tools and inhabiting constructed environments.
The humble coffee shop for example is a place where many of us go to read, write, think, converse, and do other things that require our focus. The intricate weave of activity and mixture of sounds create a conducive ambience for our attention. How is it that such a busy, public space is so popular for quiet, private activity? This is only counterintuitive if we think distraction is the only unneutral effect our environment has on our ability to focus. From experience we know that it can be easier to focus in spite of extraneous sensory information rather than in absence of it. Perhaps because our cognitive capacities evolved in settings where total absence of sensory input was rare, our minds focus more easily against a backdrop of mundane information. Certain kinds of technologies are essential here and even computer screens are welcome, but not TVs because they would be too disruptive. A good ecology of attention not only prevents distractions, but encourages focus.
I’ve moved into my apartment now, into the warmth. Out in the balcony my fingers were getting too cold. Above my head the clock ticks and farther away traffic brushes by in irregular strokes. The faint wail of an ambulance emerges suddenly and then fades quickly. Occasionally in the hallway outside our apartment a door opens and then shuts a moment later. Our little dog scurries about the living room looking for amusement. My wife Z works intently at her desk a few feet away in silence apart from intermittent bursts of typing and muted clicks of her mouse. Attention to my writing flows easily despite all these things, except when my gaze drifts over to what is happening on her computer screen. So I adjust my sitting position to make it vanish.