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Continuous Partial Attention
ubercombatwombat writes "While answering my softphone and checking my mail simultaneously I ran across the following article by Steven Levy. In it he writes about a speaker named Linda Stone and something she called "Continuous Partial Attention." I finally had a phrase for the reason I turn off wi-fi, asked people to turn off their cell phones and put away their crackberrys when I am speaking to a group. I suffer from this too. Starting today I am going to do something about it, brb."
The author's e-mail address is rkeller@legoebay.com (Legoe Bay Wireless, LLC) which is actually a domain for a wireless internet provider for San Juan Islands near Bellingham, Washington.
In other news, R. Keller of Legoe Bay communications was fired today after he ran through his office complex preaching the horrors of wireless devices.
His manager later commented that his "Continuous Partial Attention" campaign wasn't very good for business.
My work here is dung.
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What? Sorry, I wasn't listening.
I was thinking about this and
Now just imagine what would happen if you never opened slashdot!
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Continuous Partial Attention is way too kind. It begs forgiveness at the promise of continuous, then betrays with partial.
Anyone who's majored in Mathematics (I did) must spend one semester carefully defining, understanding, and proving continuity. What's described by today's "etiquette" clearly and egregiously violates the notion of continuous, rendering the euphemism "Continous Partial Attention" nothing more than an oxymoron.
And, it's pretty easy to tell when the person on the other end is giving CPA... in person, vague and inconsistent eye contact while constantly glancing at some screen (be it PDA or computer). Remotely (phone) it's even more annoying.
I've taken my own path to self-correct.
Of the last ten social events I've attended (movies, parties, recitals, concerts) every single time I saw, heard, and was distracted by someone using some PDA, or other gadget... and not one of those times did it seem appropriate or necessary (not saying there weren't necessary times, but I'm guessing there weren't).
I've yet to meet anyone important enough they must be connected and engaged every waking moment. The world worked well before all of this, it would be a better place if we turned down the volume on the gadgetry (not that Verizon, SONY, Apple, et. al., will ever allow that to happen on their watch (literally)).
It doesn't help that we somehow come up with a positive sounding euphemism for it.
It isn't just that this kind of thing affects our productivity at work. I find it drastically affects our interpersonal relationships in general. A rather pathetic and depressing example: Whenever I and my girlfriend are talking in person we get along amazingly - we discuss interesting things, and find each other to be amusing and fun. But when I try to talk to her online or on the phone, it's impossible. She is constantly talking to about four other people, and even when she tries to devote more attention to me, it is really not possible, and these conversations usually end with me giving up in frustration, which needless to say is slowly killing our relationship, especially if I try to ask her to shut off the other stuff.
Apart from this little side rant into bitterness, my point is that we are becoming so inundated with communications, and we are trying so hard to talk and connect with everyone, that it is impossible to talk to anyone. Mobile communications can enhance productivity and relationships if used properly, but God knows they can be a pain.
this has existed since humans had the ability to think about more than one thing at a time. i can be sitting in a room with zero distractions, listening to a presentation and i still drift in and out.
my wife has vivid memories of sitting in church as a child while her dad made to-do lists during the sermon.
it is a valuable skill, being able to give partial attention to multiple inputs. it keeps us alive in many situations. when i worked on a flight deck we called it 'keeping your head on a swivel'. and never getting too locked in to one thing. that was the way to get blown over or some other nastiness.
and i'd be very surprised to find a person who would assert that surfing the web or whatever else they may do at a presentation had no effect on their attention. they know it degrades it, but the point is, most such venues don't warrant the attenders full attention. in the case that it does, they will quickly shift away from the other inputs.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I have difficulty focusing on one thing when I am only reading a webpage like that one. With hundreds of links on the page, nice big flash adds, and the text taking up a quarter width of the page, and split aroung an add, how can I help it. What a joke. Please don't link to that site again. What were they thinking. Can't I just read an article, without a thousand distractions on the page.
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The author's e-mail address is rkeller@legoebay.com
A whole Ebay just for Lego!
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
The best test environment is production. - Me
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
The summary didn't define "Continuous Partial Attention"!
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
I notice myself typing BRB a lot as soon as someone messages me through MSN. Usually it's not that I don't want to talk to them, it's just that I was putting off something else I was going to do, and they've broken me out of what I was currently doing, so before I get attached in a new conversation I can leap over to what I should be doing.
Some days I just throw myself at one task and get it done, rather than dabbling in everything. Dabbling in everything is fun, and feels like a busy day, but it tends to produce a lot less than a dedicated day [which is usually away from the primary computer(s) I use].
Oh You POS
I think that many presenters have forgotten that if they WANT our attention, they must earn it. Keep speeches and presentations SHORT! Anything over 20 minutes is overkill in my opinion unless your doing a demonstration. Ultimately, one can only be bothered by what others do if the let themselves be bothered. Too many times in this day and age people don't simply learn how to mind thier own business. If my PDA or phone is silent while I work with it, then why is it a distraction? Same goes with a laptop. If you want to avoid the picket fenc deal, then I would suggest a change....either get rid of tables at the presentation or design them such that the laptops can be used with out distracting the presenter.
Gorkman
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There is an answer for this, well, several answers that partially fix the problem. I'll wager that MS won't write the software needed, nor will any educational institution instruct people on how to use technology.
/. of course) so that my attention is interrupted not by every little thing, but only those things I'm interested in at that time.
Mobile devices, computers, all this technology that serves to distract us is capable of being moderated. That is to say, my phone should only ring when the call is from list X while I have it set this way, so that while I'm attending certain functions, only list X callers will interrupt my activities. I should be able to have many such lists, and using ring tones, know which list the caller is from. The same goes for computers, any activity on the computer that demands attention can be moderated (except
This limits the distractions, and gives us more time to concentrate on other things, to be more effective at multitasking. This, I believe, was the original reasoning for executives to have an assistant. Now we have PDAs and they are not moderating the interuptions to our lives... not really very good assistants!
The simple idea of moderating alerts, notifications, emails, and such is just not catching on. In some 10 years or more, I can see computer programs that have some kind of AI built into them to make them really good digital assistants.... till then, pfft, people will still wreck their cars while typing an email, driving, and trying to eat lunch at the same time... There was a word we used to use - Dictation, why don't PDAs allow for dictation of emails?
Well, so much for technological 'advances'
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
So... she basically gave a name, applying mostly to geeks, for the small amount of ADD that all of us h- ooh, shiny object!
I've actually been in church when some guy took a cell phone call. My mother was at a funeral when someone was gabbing on the cell in the back. That when CPA is REALLY a problem.
But my comments, from a former computer science undergrad major that changed his mind in senior year to become a history major is this: I am now working on my PhD in history and I know one thing: Today's grad school students are suffering from this (even the historians!). And either they will ALL suffer from this, or most will and a select few will avoid this problem and become the real experts in their academic study. You cannot become an expert in a particular field of study without TIME and STUDY. Both of those aspects are compromised with CPA.
Ask yourself...
How many people do you know deserve your full attention?
How many lecturers (hot air bags) deserve your full attention?
At best, speech has a disgustingly low information density, why waste time listening to blow hards?
And if you haven't skipped my message yet...I'm not even part of the IM generation. For some things, even age does not bring patience.
As others have commented, the distractions are so pervasive that we are losing valuable interpersonal communications. As painful as it was to be stuck in a car for hours on end when I was a kid, I still feel a little sad these days when I drive along listening to my mp3 player while my wife chats on her cell phone and both kids focus on their own dvd players. It's like we're together, but we're not.
By all means make a todo list during the sermon, but don't stop talking to your kids.
If you want to get deeper into total awareness, I suggest looking into Jon Kabat-Zinn's work in mindfulness. He's a Ph.D. and Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School who teaches mindfulness as a way of relieving stress. Even when you turn off your cell phone, your mind might still be elsewhere.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
I agree that I fail to see any pressing need for crackberries. While at work in front of my main computer, however, my teammates and I run an IRC server for ourselves. Rather than be interrupted by phone calls, emails, and meetings, we are able to be in constant communication and it enhances our work rather than distract from it. Add to this a wiki for publishing documentation on what we are working on, and our own group is pretty efficient. Now the company as a whole, however, that's a different story.
As a corporate worker for years, it seemed that this was more prevalent in the upper management areas where directors, VPs, the "Crackberry class" always wanted to know what was happening.
And like everything else, they succeeded or failed wildly. Some can handle two things at once and some couldn't.
But more, they never had a life, being too connected. That was one thing I hated and refused to get a Blackberry for that reason. I don't like being "live" on the network all the time. There's a time for it (when I'm on call), but many other times I want to work on something else. We even had a wireless service inside the campus where your desk phone would be forwarded to your cell phone anywhere in the building, which worked great in the data center. But when I'm away from my desk, I usually don't want to be interrupted because I'm doing something, so I never used it.
I see this at home as well, and as mentioned in the other posts so far. My wife will call me like 4 or 5 times on the way home, for these little snippets, "did you hear?" or "stop and get this" or "what about this?" and it's annoying.
The mobile phone doesn't mean that we are always available. It's a tool and should be used as a tool when appropriate. Not for every little whim or distraction.
Stardate 46539.5, USS Enterprise NCC 1701 - D...
:-)
Picard: I am going to sleep now...Data, you have the bridge (I hope nothing wakes me up this time).
Data: ok Sir.
After 20 minutes:
Data: Data to Picard.
Picard: (sleepy) ommm, what is it?
Data: we are 3 days away from our rendesvous point, sir.
Picard: good...night.
Data: yes sir.
After 5 minutes:
LaForge : Engineering to Picard.
Picard: (grrr, this can't go on for ever!) what is it this time Geordi?
LaForge: I couldn't sleep sir, so I thought to check up on the engines.
Picard: so? you wake me up for that?
LaForge: the engines are not performing as they should, sir.
Picard: ok, run a full diagnostic and notify me.
LaForge: yes sir.
Picard: in the morning, that is.
LaForge: yes sir.
After 10 minutes:
LtWorf: Security to Picard.
Picard: (outraged) what????
LtWorf: sorry sir, I did not mean to bother you.
Picard: ok, tell me.
LtWorf: I think that the teenage people on board are a little behind their physical training schedules. We need to:
Picard: damn you Worf, don't you have anything else to occupy yourself with? it is 3 am in the morning!
LtWorf: duty first, sir.
Picard: GOODNIGHT!
After 5 minutes:
Data: Data to Picard.
Picard: WHAT NOW???
Data: I have never seen such a beautiful star cluster, sir. I am actually thinking of a poem for it, right now. Do you believe that...
Picard: THIS IS THE CAPTAIN SPEAKING...ATTENTION ALL CREW MEMBERS. PLEASE SHUT DOWN ALL YOUR COMMUNICATORS AND GO SLEEP! GOD DAMN IT!!!!
moral of the story: technology and instant communication with anyone, anytime in any place is not always desirable...
I see things like this at the gym where people are reading books/magazines while using the treadmill. I watch them get so involved in their reading that their workout suffers. Yet I am sure they think that they are having a worthwhile workout.
There is an old chinese saying about living life that sums up a good way to live it:
Sleep when tired, eat when hungry.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
The clickity-clickity of a person (or multiple persons) thumbing a reply to every super-urgent e-mail they receive on their crackberries during meetings or presentations is not silent. Nor is someone pecking at a laptop keyboard. Nor is a cellphone vibrate alert. Yes, even that is distracting, not only to the presenter or speaker, but more importantly, to the other people who are there to participate in the meeting, discussion, or presentation.
Parent: "ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?"
Teenager: " Uh, yeah, dad. You're right!"
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
Just try it one evening with someone important: close MSN, and don't answer any phone. Maybe I'm just a dinosaur, with no cell and a habit of not answering the phone when in good company. Maybe the fact that I have multiple lovers has something to do with it too!
my phone should only ring when the call is from list X while I have it set this way, so that while I'm attending certain functions, only list X callers will interrupt my activities. I should be able to have many such lists, and using ring tones, know which list the caller is from.
My two year old cell phone can do this. I can specify different ringers to different people and answer based on that. Also, there's this little thing called caller-id. In a meeting, if I need to be reachable, my phone is set to vibrate. If it goes off, I look at the caller-id to decide if I should answer or not. I can set it to always vibrate for certain people, or I can set it to never ring for certain people.
On the computer, set your messaging status to away, or set up email folders for different people and set a notification to inform you when you get an email in that folder, or again, get the notification, and only open the email if it's from specific people.
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
If you're not planning to do one thing right, then be prepared to do multiple things with a notable degree of mediocrity! And I'm being totally serious here. (Also note how many people complain about their distaste for multifunction devices.)
Too late
So how long until some reject decides this is a disease and demands compensation?
Some loser is going to sue the boss on the grounds that their work-environment has cuased this menacing, life robbing, depression afflicting, makes-you-bald, and worst of all sex-drive-killing disease known as C.P.A. to fall upon them and ruin their life. Becuase the boss made them carry a walky-talky cell phone with both Yahoo AND AIM.
I agree with the article in that people are getting too easily distracted, but the solution is a matter of restraint, respect, and discipline...Just turn it off or down or dont answer unless you are in an appropriate situation. Live communications=1st priority.
Turning things off is perhaps the single most important activity people can do, today, especially when children are around. Turn the TV off, turn the radio off, close the web browser, and realize that silence is quite enjoyable at times. Toddlers' heads aren't spinning off trying to "multi task" at TV and toys, and parents' heads aren't crunching trying to watch a show while pretending to give their children attention. The same goes for co-workers in the office. People are offended when they can't get undivided attention. I can't stand it when I'm trying to talk to someone, the phone rings, and I might as well leave. Nothing important gets done.
I wonder how productivity is measured, because it doesn't seem to be increasing. At least, people are being stretched until productivity simply cannot increase, without some sort of bionic implants.
I've been in project meetings where I meticulously explained the plan, only to be whacked later because someone who was typing and reading stuff on her laptop screen as I explained what I planned to do realized she didn't know what I was doing ... and had to report on the project to her manager.
In my personal case, most of the time what's going on is not sufficient to keep my attention. So I've found that I actually respond better if I'm able to do priority-based multitasking, i.e. listen when there's something interesting being said, but have something else to do otherwise.
:-)
I guess if I were an "old lady", I could knit. Failing that, if I have web connectivity I'll surf around the net.
Do others have a similar perspective? Or am I just weird?
dave
Well, had I not opened slashdot, I wouldn't have seen this story informing me of how I can be more productive. So in essence, slashdot had made me more productive!
This guy's the limit!
...missed what the article was covering as I was reading /., doing a build, doing two code releases, responding to emails, answering the phone and listening to music...
What was the general gist again
:-]
Jaj
Funny how that works, isn't it? ;)
If I ever really want to get any work done, I've got to hide myself away in a corner of the library, while leaving my laptop at home. Too much effort!
I feel I can pretty confidently talk on it. Like a poster above my wife and I can have wonderful conversations but if it's on the phone then there's always something else vying for my attention, and it ends up distracting me. This same thing happens when talking to friends as well, and co-workers.
To help overcome this I have done a few things.
A) Calling me on my cel phone doesn't mean I will answer, some phone numbers don't even ring on my cel, others have rings to tell me if it's someone who probably has urgent needs. This let's me filter out my mother with her latest e-mail not sending crisis. Most cel phones now will let you classify contacts and only ring for certain classes of contacts and maybe vibrate or not ring at all for others.
B) The cel phone does not come into the bedroom or bathroom.
C) Explain to my wife that if I'm looking at one thing then probably she won't have my attention until she gets it BEFORE asking me something.
D) Disabled all notification sounds on my IM clients, and have the IM clients on a separate screen from the one I'm working on. I check them from time to time, but if someone needs me that urgently they know how to get in touch more directly than IM.
E) Never carried a Crackberry, never will.
Does this make me some type of "disconnected Luddite of the instant access age"??
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
It is my understanding that the more important one is, the less one wants to communicate. If people need them, they will do their best to find these people. And people need important people all the time it seems. I'm pretty sure presidents, popular star & very young children get all the attention they want (perhaps the last group is the exception, although there might not be that much difference...).
Bottom line: all those people you see communicating do it because they feel they want to or have to. Very important it probably isn't, and neither are these over-attention seekers.
Continuous Partial Attention? Try maintaining any attention when you have this blared out from overhead every three minutes:
Im Selfimportant, you have a call parked on 666. Im Selfimportant, 666 please.
I'm a "knowledge worker." I don't appreciate a voice interrupting my thoughts all the sodding time. I'm scatterbrained enough as it is, but I feel like Harrison Bergeron some days. It's usually a call for someone in Sales or Support anyway; why the fuck not forward the caller to their bloody cell phone, instead of blasting the grating voice of the receptionist to everyone in the building?
We have you partially surrounded!
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
agreed.
--cros13
and I just realised that my productivity has no real impact on my salary. I could sit here and flick my fingers and still make the same money.... ::flick:: ::flick:: ::flick:: ...
There is the sound of increasing shareholder value.
-Steve
(but my good friends call me wally)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
That article yesterday about a Professor banning laptops from her classroom (although I don't know why that's major news - most of my undergrad classes wouldn't allow them, though all my law school courses do) seems to fit perfectly under this. Maybe that prof was on to something. Personally I use phones (txt msging), laptops and PDA's all the time, while doing other things - including my laptop in class - and I know for sure that I am not paying full attention to any one thing - even if I'm only using my laptop to take notes.
-Daniel
If M$ made it, would you trust it to work? M$ "Smart" phones have not been very smart.
In the mean time, I'm keeping the thing on. My duty to my pregnant wife and four year old girl are more important to me than what you think of my manners. Nokia has a ring tone or two that don't sound like a cell phone and are not nearly as obtrusive as the typical cell phone spam song defaults. The "meeting mode" works too, providing an ascending ring as does the choice of vibrate instead of ring. Doctors, first responders and many other people have even greater needs for constant contact than I do.
Most people should view other's loyalty to their friends and family as more important than most things in life and tolerate a few interruptions. People who talk about "crackberries" and think their particular talk is more important than God don't have their priorties in order.
Meetings are nice now and then, but electronic communications are making them less useful and less productive. If the Linux kernel, GNU, Gnome, KDE, can all be built online without regular meetings, what task can't be done this way?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't know if that was intentional, unconscious, or not, but the script above is very similar to the opening scene of A Fistful of Datas, except they all bug Picard in person.
Some stuff is just too important to put down in writing, after all. I have several coworkers who practice the advice of AG Eliot Spitzer (speaking facetiously about criminal behavior, but if the shoe fits...) and "Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail."
Please, no more blog-crap like this!
> I finally had a phrase for the reason I turn off wi-fi, asked people to turn off
> their cell phones and put away their crackberrys when I am speaking to a group.
Some random blogger quoting an author, who is in turn quoting some unimportant MS employee who's come up with a typically naff corporate buzzword for a well known concept is neither "News for nerds" nor is it "stuff that matters".
When I was at school, it was called "not paying attention". Why does it have to be given a faux-medical/scientific term now?
During the presentations the faces of at least half the crowd were lit with the spooky reflection of the laptops open before them. Those without computers would periodically bow their heads to the palmtop shrine of the BlackBerry. Every speaker was competing with the distractions of e-mail, instant messaging, Web surfing, online bill paying, blogging and an Internet chat "back channel" where conferencees supplied snarky commentary on the speakers. ... Your world turns into a never-ending cocktail party where you're always looking over your virtual shoulder for a better conversation partner.
What a small minded slam. How does he know that people are not googling for the author's articles or hitting wikipedia for terms they don't understand? Even the chatting with your peers can be useful and informative. It sure beats the hell out of whispering back and forth. People want to share and your friends have more pertinent information than anyone else. All this "spooky" talk about betrayal and badmouthing misses all the good things you can do with the tech at hand.
If I want to tune out of your speech, I'll leave in your face and go to a presentation that holds my interest. You should not be afraid of my cell phone or Zaurus. It's my time and you should respect my use of it, so long as I don't bother people sitting around me.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I wouldn't have called it this before reading the article, but "Continuous Partial Attention" is exactly why talking on a cell phone while driving is as dangerous as being at 0.08 blood alcohol and driving, and why "hands free" headsets don't actually help much.
Driving requires a lot of attention (barring interstates in Nebraska), and someone talking to you on the phone is themselves expecting a lot of your attention and isn't aware of the driving situation to know why you aren't giving it to them. As soon as you stop paying attention to deal with something on the road, it's "Hello? Hello? You there?" as I know from the times I've done it, which is why I refuse to talk while driving. This is also why talking to a passenger isn't dangerous, because when the semi-truck swerves into your lane they see it too and know that you have more important things to focus on.
So it isn't just ironic that she'd be splitting her attention between driving and her electronic communication device -- it's just plain irresponsible, and from someone who has every reason to know better.
The enemies of Democracy are
Focusing on one thing at a time is a skill that takes lot of practice, imho. Generally in the West we are not brought up to do that - just look at the trouble most folks have with meditation even for a few minutes. Focusing just on listening is hard, too, and taking notes is often a way of not listening. IME, many of the laptop/crackberry/mobile toting characters in an audience are not showing Continuous Partial Attention so much as trying to assert their dominance in the pecking order. If they are carrying all this kit and need to be so connected, well then they must be big, alpha cheeses. Usually they aren't and the ones to watch are those concentrating and not even taking notes. If I make a habit of lugging all this stuff around, then I have become my own slave-driver and show, too, that I cannot organize my own day. That is really not alpha at all.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
Yeah, I run Konqueror with flash turned off to stop that. Anyting that actually needs something fancy is a right click, open with firefox button push away. Garbage like M$NBC loads much faster, but still needs a tab of it's own to hide the ugly.
Imagine the life of a M$IE user who can't easily turn off flash, has multiple adsservers installed and problems with popups to compliment all the intended spam. Unbearable browsing.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
BUT...it's worth thinking about why people do this. I'm as guilty as anyone. The fact is - most paper presentations are incredibly boring. A certain percentage of them are given by people whose first language isn't English and are agony to listen to. Many are simply readings of the paper itself which is of no value to anyone. You have to ask what the purpose of a paper presentation actually is - as far as I can make out it's primary function is as a reward to the paper author, not a means of technical communication. In fact there are a whole bunch of colluding parties here: the conference organisers gain prestige from the presentation of good papers, the authors gain prestige by being able to claim they spoke at SIGGRAPH, and the audience get to have fun for a few days while claiming they were working. Everyone gains.
In fact, the way I use SIGGRAPH is this: I take my laptop with me and use the time away from my desk, in the conference hall, experimenting with speculative algorithms without the pressure of having to deliver anything. Just being in the presence of people talking about algorithms can be incredibly inspiring, even if you ignore the details of what they have to say. This has paid off for me quite well a couple of times in my life. And I'll read the papers later in the conference proceedings if something seems interesting.
So I plan to continue my continuous partial attention at SIGGRAPH every year.
"The White House is not an intelligence-gathering agency," -- Scott McClellan, Whitehouse spokesman.
for me to start reading the article. I kept getting interupted. Sheesh!!!
I hate it when presenters or other meeting runners do this. Dont judge me guilty before I've committed a crime. This also implies that what they have to say is going to keep my attention 100% of the time, which it never does. Why cant I read an email or two while you fumble with your slides, make sure everyone on the video conference can hear you, take a drink of water, and whatever else takes up the first 10 minutes of every meeting?
If someone is distracting, have the courage call them out. This premptive strike is cowardly and more unprofessional than the behavoir it is trying to prevent.
I thought assistants were for sex? Damn, there go my dreams.
...today, and in fact, there are numerous websites, blogs and podcasts focusing on solving the issues brought by "always on", "continous partial attention" etc.
At the center of attentions stands a certain book, Getting Things Done by David Allen. (Slashdot review) This book does not deal with this particular issue, however, it provides a framework for managing time in the age of continous partial attention.
One site I would particularly recommend as a starting point is 43Folders. It's a blog, a community and a useful portal to the part of the Web focused on this issue. If podcasts are your thing, there is a funny yet educational speech available from BayCHI held by 43Folder's founder you might want to listen to - if it sounds familiar, it would probably be a good idea to check out the book.
From the Article
I really can't think of a better punchline than that.
Hmm...I have never heard a blackberry make clicky click noises unless I was right beside or in front of the user. Same thing goes with the vibe of a crackberry. I have heard the cliky clik of a laptop keybaord, but honestly if that bothers you when your presenting or being presented to, then go lock yourself in a dark room. People are just too damn sensative today.
Gorkman
I understood the phrase "continuous partial" to imply that attention was never fully taken away (continuous), but it wasn't at 100%, either (partial). I admit, I only minored in math, but I'm pretty sure it's possible for a variable to...umm...vary, without a discontinuity. Sorry, I'm being unnecessarily sarcastic, but you get the point. Attention isn't really a binary concept. In fact, completely ignoring something is pretty tough to do. I know I'm frequenty guilty of CPA, like when the annoying guy who never shuts up drops by, I'm really only paying attention to keywords that guide when and how I respond.
"blah blah blah American Idol blah blah blah blah so what did you think?"
"Didn't watch it."
Ironcially, one of those guys dropped by my desk while I was typing this post, but he was much more on task than usual...whereas I'm wasting time on Slashdot.
Continues Partial Attention is just a step before true multitasking in people just as how computer operating systems started.
For more information on Continuous Partial Attention, see yesterday's 1200 comment long discussion on laptops in the classroom.
We've definitely talked about this many times before. I guess this is more special though because she came up with a clever name for it.
Actually, I'm the UW ADRC Data Manager now (Alzheimers, PD, many others), was doing Bioinformatics work for Malaria structures before.
All of our meetings, except video conferences, journal meetings (present papers from medical/research journals and study in depth), and presentations - all of the rest - are tech free.
It's because you get distracted from honing in on the subject at hand.
Sure, we bring nice glossy charts of the gene structure layout, where the SNPs are, various printed research papers that are relevent, but we go offline during the meetings.
If you have to do something online, you do it after the meeting, with those involved, but otherwise it just distracts.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Apparently, the talk Linda Stone did at ETech and that was the basis of this article is one she's done at several conferences. An episode of O'Reilly's Podcast has eight minutes of edited highlights.
Yeah, try that excuse with your boss when he/she walks in and catchs you on /. Let me know if they buy the increased productivity BS...
/. aga$#%{^&}@ 8^\|^@[%!&%$.NO CARRIER
Mine was so pissed the last time, he threatened to pull my network connection and strangle me with it if he ever caught me on
Smell that? You smell that? Burning karma, son. Nothing in the world smells like that...
Interesting blog with related topics.... http://www.omnibrain.org/
I work at a research university that wins tons of awards, the University of Washington, and in practice our meetings are filled with people with M.D., Ph.D., M.Sc., or at the least B.Sc. and in a post-grad program.
Our meetings are pretty much tech-free. Noone surfs on crackberries, or if they do, it's silent. If they get an urgent message, they leave the room. Always. Phones are silent (flash/vibrate).
And since we get tons of Gates and other money, I don't think we're doing it wrong.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
> I've been in project meetings where I meticulously explained the plan, only to ... and had to report on the project to her manager.
> be whacked later because someone who was typing and reading stuff on her
> laptop screen as I explained what I planned to do realized she didn't know
> what I was doing
Are you "enabling" the situation? In psychology terms, an "enabler" is someone who not only permits an undesireable situation, but often enables it to continue by fixing the resulting problems.
Seems to me that the best lesson we can teach this kind of person is to point out exactly why they missed the information, ask them to pay attention to the discussion next time, and let them take the heat with their manager, rather than bailing them out and essentially teaching them that what they did was not only accepted, but had no negative consequences and this could be repeated in the future.
Adults may not be small children, but sometimes they need to be treated like one if they can't get the point any other way.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
I think there is one syndrome that is being overlooked here, the need for attention starved people to start labelling something as a syndrome to get 15 minutes of fame. I call it RCS (Repetitive Crap Syndrome).
I am not only a member of the RCS Anonymous help group, I am its president.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
But I only have informal studies to back that claim.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
We must all fight back against corporate ownership of the English language. Screw the trademark, they will always be legos to me.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
I find that in a given day I get about 15 minutes of actual work done...
I do that sometimes, in fact I'm playing online poker right now.
what sig?
- Do you realize what this means?
- (Shocked looked) Hey! You're getting paid for that!
Slashdot: News for nerds. Stuff tha-- MICRO$OFT IS THE DEVIL!!1
I notice the same thing - runners listening to the ipod or radio. They are so busy listening that they don't even realize what a lousy workout they're getting.
/not
They should learn to sit on the couch and listen to that stuff, and then leave the running for itself.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I always think a computer analogy is apropriate for this kind of discussion. Multitasking is, by and large, an illusion. Sure, our brains are capable of a fair amount of parallel processing, but it happens at an unconscious level for the most part. To put it in terms geeks can understand, our brains are like CPU with a limited number of specialized functional units. We only have a limited ability to parallelize tasks that don't compete for resources. As soon as tasks compete for resources we get stuck in a task switching mode. Conscious attention is the most limited resource of all. We can only practically pay conscious attention to one thing at a time. And switching conscious attention is a relatively expensive operation. It's something you want to avoid as much as possible, just like you want to avoid kernel-user mode switching as much as possible in an OS. Some people have better hardware (better able to task switch) than others, but there will always be a penalty for dividing your attention. For me, the worst I find is with competing sensory input. Sure, I can sort of take in all senses at once, but I can only really focus fully on one sense at a time. For instance, listening and reading aren't tasks I can carry on simultaneously with any degree of effectiveness. It's the main reason I get away from the computer and all other visual distractions (like TV) if I'm trying to have a conversation with someone. It's also the reason I will never ever ever talk on a cell phone while driving.
Naw, we're not ready for CPA to be a disease yet. Now that suing tobacco has gone out of style, we have to finish the suits against Nabisco and McDonald's for making us all fat. To jump ahead into CPA suits while the obesity suits are still on -- that would be too much like, well, CPA.
Once our cancerous, fat asses get done with the McObesity suits, we can sue to get our attention spans back. We'll need a better acronym, though, something more like Seasonal Affected Disorder (SAD), more commonly known as the "winter blahs" or "cabin fever". Maybe something like Technological Attention Reduction Disorder (TARD).
Or, I'll just call 'em legos like I always have. Why should I be concerned what a corporation thinks about my language usage?
My blackberry is the first thing I grab when confronted by some idiot
talking out his ass.....It just so happens that it occurs at nearly
every presentation or meeting I attend.
In my life, Zen practice figures prominently. Zen is largely about learning to pay attention to here-and-now, so that we're living our actual life (one moment at a time) rather than being buffetted about as we chase one thought after another, or one craving after the next, or being constantly pulled in different directions by all the demands of our lives.
From that perspective, this issue is very serious: to go to the grave without having learned to actually be satisfied with the simple day-to-day routines of living is to die without really having lived. Normally we think of being "fully alive" as somehow being able to pack in as much of the things we like into each day, but that isn't it at all. Being fully alive means being fully engaged with whatever ordinary content life serves up at each moment.
When we try to multitask beyond what is really needed at the moment, we're not only depriving others of our availability, we're depriving ourselves of the opportunity to be truly alive in this moment (which is, ultimately, the only time we can actually live, no?)
Slashdot -> Increased Productivity!? Inconceivable!
... though he might not admit it!
Here is what Eco had to say in a witty pastische back in the 1980's, which happily has since been translated into English:
"Anyone who flaunts a portable phone as a symbol of power is, on the contrary, announcing to all and sundry his desperate, subaltern position, in which he is obliged to snap to attention, even when making love, if the CEO happens to telephone; he has to pursue creditors day and night to keep his head above water; and he is persecuted by the bank, even at his daughter's First Holy Communion, because of an overdraft. The fact that he uses, ostentatiously, his cellular is proof that he doesn't know these things, and it is the confirmation of his social banishment, beyond appeal."
More proof that CEO's don't read Eco!
You're right, insomuch that "continuous" is not the right term from a mathematical viewpoint. As a fellow /.er who majored in Mathematics, I propose we rename it Discrete Partial Attention. As anyone who has been on the receiving end of a "conversation" (perhaps about the cute outfits she's seen on sale at some store and how much each one costs with great details on how the garments are constructed) with a significant female other can attest to, there are distinct moments where you are actually pay full attention. These occur when she asks, "Are you listening to me? What did I just say? You aren't listening, are you? You don't really love me. If you really loved me you would actually listen to me instead of wasting all your time on that stupid dot-slash website."
This isn't the sig you're looking for...
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It was those damn tamaguchies or how ever you spell it. Those stupid little electonic "pets"... They functioned as training devices to teach people to be slaves to their electronics. SLAVES I TELL YOU!!!
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
Yes, even that is distracting, not only to the presenter or speaker, but more importantly, to the other people who are there to participate in the meeting, discussion, or presentation.
What if that crackberry message or cell phone call is from a multi-million dollar client or to let you know a mission critical production server is down?
That boring presentation on sales figures for 2007 isn't very important now is it... In the cut throat dog eat dog of business world, you cannot have but interruptions. Things change minute by minute and if you every minute you miss that information you could be loosing buttloads of money for the company.
(Truth be told... I don't like to work in such high stress environments, but I know of them and have supported people via contract for them)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Your world turns into a never-ending cocktail party where you're always looking over your virtual shoulder for a better conversation partner.
Turns into?
Thanks. That was an interesting counterpoint to all the otherwise silly comments.
and not smart enough to realize it, or how condescending it is to those you're paying "attention" to.
it's very easy to poke fun at this but it would be interesting to see someone forecast its effect in business. i only say that because business seems to rule and if it finds that it's no longer making money by betting on the need for ever more distraction then things might change. for instance the video sales pitch in the produce mentioned in another thread. at some point there will be a rebellion against this.
i've rebelled for quite awhile because it's just so stupid . i'd rather be engaged with the world and everything it it than always half-distracted. but that's just me. at some point i hope there will be a lot more people like me. and at some point business will say "uh, oh. people don't want this continual distraction. now we need to sell protective shields, or meditation chambers, or wirefree zones in cities where people can walk without any type of electronic interference."
time will tell. let's just hope it happens quickly.
Quieting your monkey mind is hard and takes practice.
There's a time and place for everything, even listening to presentations and attending meetings.
We married men have been using this skill for years, does this mean I have give her my full attention now?
FTA:
Stone first noticed the syndrome a decade ago when she was creating a product for Microsoft that let people interact in a "virtual world."
Someone please look up the credits in Microsoft Bob. Thank you.
It really isn't even so much the sound that the devices make that is distracting. No matter what the person next to you or in front of you is doing, if it isn't watching the presentation or participating in the discussion but rather fidgitting with some gadget, it is somehow always more interesting (i.e. distracting) than that presentation/discussion. It's human nature to be aware of one's surroundings. And when you are surrounded by crackberry addicts, that can be very distracting!
If you really must respond that an e-mail, or take a call, then you will know ahead of time of the possibility of a very important and urgent e-mail or call. In that case, you should prepare for that possibility by sitting at the back of the room, near the door. This makes for a quick and easy escape should your need to take the call (which of course, you would never do in the room, right?), and even if you need to peck out a quick e-mail reply, you can do it literally behind everyone else's backs, so that you are less distracting.
The problem is that most of the people who carry these things (and have a habit of using them in these situations) feel important, and like to sit in a prominent part of the room, near the front or near the speaker, etc. And that just compounds the distraction!
This is a great resource for buying Lego pieces or even kits. It used to be called BrickBay but eBay felt they had some hold over the word 'bay'... /rolleyes
I was really shocked when I first discovered that site. The idea that you could buy any piece you wanted for just a few pennies was like a geek dream come true!
You can search here to find detailed kit inventories like this one for all but the newest kits. And the Price Guide is a great help too, so you can see what the part has sold for in the past 6 months. Of course the Search Page is the heart of it, allowing you to search for the part you want (once you know its part number) and allows you to restrict searches to sellers in your own country to keep shipping costs down.
All in all, it's a great site. I also love that I don't have to worry about submitting a winning (sniping) bid, or wait days for an auction to end.
I...I'm attacking the darkness!