Attention

Joseph Reagle

Focus

Attention test

Simons and Chabris

Distraction

Dangerous

Pain vs. Boredom

(WilsonEtal2014jtc)

Monkey mind

1 minute of following mind

What of your intention experiment?

Chayko’s benefits & hazards

Define??

In groups of four: define and give example.

  • asynchronous communication
  • attention
  • multi-tasking
  • continuous partial attention

asynchronous communication
sender and receiver accommodate delays between interactions
attention
concentration of mental focus, often limited/exclusionary
multi-tasking
performing 2+ tasks (requiring attention) at a time
continuous partial attention
what people actually do: move attention between tasks

Chayko’s plus and minuses?

  • play
  • keeping up with it all
  • emergency use
  • health and moods

Is tech a “double-edged sword”?

Discuss

  • Is time now “softened” or “porous”?
    • notion of lateness relaxed because of microcoordination
  • Can we be “addicted”?
    • dependence is downward spiral of behavior; addiction is disease/chemical
  • How does appreciation of social media vary with gender?
    • women report lower stress because of connection to friends & family; also bear “cost of caring”
  • What is the “irrationality of rationality”
    • convenience of tools become inconvenient
  • Eve S. on porous time

Other reading response questions?

What is McDonaldization?

Problematic claims

modern brains may be undergoing an evolutionary adaptation to the technology-rich media environment (Chayko 2016, p. 186)

Natural selection requires: variation, selection, and heredity—over hundreds of generations

Multi-task guess!

How many students can talk on phone and drive safely?

  1. <1%
  2. <5%
  3. <10%
  4. <20%

researchers found that 2.4% of college students can talk on the telephone while operating an automobile simulator without degraded performance (Rheingold 2012, “Net Smart”, p. 37)

Test your multi-tasking

  • Can you recite the letters of the alphabet?
  • Can you count from 1 to 26?
  • Pair off:
    • first person count:
      • a–1, b–2, c–3, d–4, e–5, etc.
    • other person take a turn.

Self-restraint

Marshmallow study

(Mischel & Ebbesen 1970)

Mischel revisited

(KiddPalmeriAslin 2013)

Mischel debunked

A rigorous and pre-registered study (Benjamin et al. 2020) found:

  • A self-regulatory competence index done by parents (at 17) and the students (at 27 and 37) moderately predicts many individual outcomes. The marshmallow test added little to nothing.

[Mischel never wavered in] support for teaching kids delay of gratification skills… Anyone can learn this willpower, he contended, even those who just couldn’t resist that first marshmallow. (Gill 2021)

What can we do?

Pomodoro technique

Hacking Life

… and “distraction free” editors.

What do you do?

Conclusion

Wrap-up

Enumerate four of the most important things we know about attention and suggest guidelines on how strengthen our “attention muscles.”

Review

Demonstrative story

  • asynchronous communication
  • attention
  • multi-tasking
  • continuous partial attention

One of the benefits of asynchronous communication is …

What did you recommend for strengthening attention muscles?

  • What did Simons and Chabris experiment demonstrate?
  • What simple tasks did we combine to test our multi-tasking?
  • What are some of Chayko’s benefits & hazards of being “connected”?
  • What is McDonaldization?
  • What would be an incorrect inference about the Marshmallow study?