Attention Experiments.
2 min attention span required “Pay attention to what you pay attention to.”
-Amy Krouse Rosenthal
In the intense Attention Economy we often lose sight of what really matters to us personally.
What sparks your interest?
What do you want to focus on?
Do you really focus on things that you wish to pay attention to?
Experiments
In order to find answers to those questions I underwent three different experiments that I documented on this website. My intention was to focus on things and people that were NOT asking for my attention. As my main inspiration tool for the attention exercises I used the book “The Art of Noticing” by Rob Walker.
The Web and the Net are spaces in which we will increasingly live our lives. 2020 has proved that point even more. The Cyberspace works under a specific set of rules and laws that turn out to be quite different from what main economic or political models teach. The current era is often referred to as 'Information Age'. Theorist Michael H. Goldhaber argues that this title might be misleading as economies are always dealing with scarce resources. Information though is an infinite resource. What counts most is what is most scarce. Our attention.
Therefore we are living in an
Attention Economy. Attention
describes how we actively process specific information in our environment. As you are reading this text, there are numerous stimuli that affect your attention. The pressure of your feet against the floor, the temperature in your surroundings, the sight when you look up, the memory of the last conversation you had or the gifs that are flying around on that website.
Nowadays every company is trying to get your attention and the battle is extremely intense. (Michael H. Goldhaber)
Let’s end the intro with a quote of Tim Wu who is convinced that:
Inspirations
Attention
Economy.
In fact, there is so much content out there for anyone that it seems impossible to use it to its full potential. (Goss, Forbes)
"We’re all participating in a cleverly orchestrated, capitalistic symphony, shrink-wrapped in the feel-good rhetoric of something called the
Attention Economy."
-Forbes Attention
Think of attention as a highlighter.
It’s about centering a focus on particular things while ignoring a great deal of competing information and stimuli.
(Kendra Cherry
Economy
“In the online economy, revenue is a function of continuous consumer attention — which is measured in clicks and time spent.”
-The Guardian “Over the coming century, the most vital human resource in need of conversation and protection is likely to be our own consciousness and mental space.”