{"id":97,"date":"2022-12-14T02:56:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T09:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/marranca511\/?p=97"},"modified":"2022-12-14T02:56:14","modified_gmt":"2022-12-14T09:56:14","slug":"ip8-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/marranca511\/2022\/12\/14\/ip8-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"IP8: Attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

I initially shied away from this IP, as its focus is on data, graphs, and analysis, which is not my area of expertise. Yet as I read more about Citton\u2019s attentional ecosophy<\/em> and thought about deep diving into my own attention, my curiosity got the best of me. As I immersed myself into Citton\u2019s (2017) writing, I braced for a dense economic-centric read, and initiated a kind of didactic notetaking practice, which quickly gave way to my standard reading practice of highlighting and marginalia. This text is not tedious economics (in fact, Citton later positions his ideas away from an economics-based perspective, and toward an ecosophical view (pp. 19-23)) \u2013 it is surprisingly and thankfully philosophically poetic, akin to French theorists such as Barthes, Baudrillard, Perec and Deleuze and Guatarri (amongst many others).<\/p>\n

Citton describes the attention economy as being \u201canother<\/em> economy\u201d (p. 4); unlike an economy based on the \u201cscarcity of factors of production<\/em>\u201d (p. 2), the attention economy focuses on the \u201cscarcity of the capacity for the reception<\/em> of cultural goods\u201d (p. 2). To simplify: an economy fueled by an excess of cultural goods, and a lack of individuals\u2019 attention to consume those goods. Citton hypothesizes that the growth of this other economy will lead to a shift where we (our attentions) will be valued as a sought after good, \u201cin a few years or decades, we will be able to request payment for giving our attention to a cultural good instead of having to pay for the right to access it\u201d (p. 8). There is something expectantly glib about this idea, as though, of course this is the kind of dystopic reality we are on the periphery of\/are already in \u2013 maybe we can benefit from it.<\/em> But we are reminded that our attention is not something to commodify, it is much more than a commodity, it is essentially us<\/em>, who we are, individually and societally.<\/p>\n

\u2026attention does not only allow us to secure our \u2018subsistence\u2019 by avoiding death, and our \u2018existence\u2019 by bringing about the emergence of a unique and unprecedented life form through us; but, above all, it enables us to acquire a greater \u2018consistence\u2019 within the relationships that are woven in us. Far from helping us only to continue in being, it enables us to become ourselves (p. 172).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Where My Attention Lies<\/strong><\/p>\n

I documented my attentions for a 12-hour period. There are different types of days in my life: a day at the office, a day working from home, a day of errands about the city, a day of adventure, a social day, a lazy day. This day was a schoolwork day, a weekend day, normally reserved for rest and relaxation, but a day I begrudgingly set aside to complete the academic tasks I signed up for. From an emotional perspective, I would describe schoolwork days as a battle with procrastination and guilt, but the data revealed more. To capture a high-level visual on how I spent the day, I went through each attention entry and coded it to pair with a higher-level categorization: Physical, Food, Social, Internet, School, Self-Care, Housekeeping, then translated this data into the pie chart displayed below.<\/p>\n

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I was surprised and pleased to see that school-related work accounted for almost half of the period, totalling just over 5 hours of work. Additionally, I was dismayed that I spent over 2 hours on the internet \u2013 and this means, just on the internet, Googling or streaming content. The \u201cinternet\u201d category does not account for all<\/em> digital activity, nor does it account for school-related internet engagement (which would exist in the \u2018school\u2019 category).<\/p>\n

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Multitasking<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The blue highlighted lines represent internet activity. <\/em>See Google Sheets document<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Over the 12-hour period, I shifted from another activity toward the internet 15 times \u2013 I used my search history to gather accurate data on time and focus of activity. Upon reflection my attention seems frenetic and impulsive, yet in the moment, my outward activity is simply reflective of my own thoughts in flux and my actions feel <\/em>fluid. De Castell and Jenson (2004) validate this kind of multitasking that is reflective of our technologically dominant culture,<\/p>\n

\u2026in fact highly efficient and effective deployments of partial, subsidiary, and intermittent attention strategies routinely used by students, who have learned to do homework while watching television and listening to music on headsets \u2014 with that homework being done on a computer whose multiple screens are simultaneously at work and at play, between Internet research, chat programs, word processing, e-mail, and, of course, online games, users switching rapidly among the screens to minimize any loss of time associated with waiting for processing, loading, connecting, and the like (p. 388).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is true that while waiting I turned my attention to the internet, but this was also my reflexive response to many passing thoughts, some of which, I did not truly care to know more about and quickly abandoned my query. \u201cGoogle lives off our active and reactive attention, which continually nourish and refine the effectiveness of the formal apparatus put at our disposal. On the other hand, Google tends increasingly to sell our attention, our needs to know and our search choices, to advertisers that the firm allows to short-circuit the effects of our common intelligence\u2026\u201d (2017, p. 9) \u2013 Citton\u2019s words remind me that I need to bring awareness to my attention, particularly if my quotidian actions benefit massive corporations by selling a little bit of me for an answer I barely cared to know.<\/p>\n

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Fluctuation Over Time<\/strong><\/p>\n

I attempted to code the data I collected to reflect the following levels: my emotional state, multitasking, and procrastination. I used a scale ranging from 0-3. For my emotional state, 0 represented negative emotions and 3 represented the height of positive emotions (ranging from resentful to enthusiastic). For multitasking, 0 represented not multitasking at all, where 3 represented extensive multitasking. For procrastination I was thinking about how my attention best reflected my goal of completing schoolwork for the day, 0 representing not procrastinating at all, and 3 representing extreme procrastination.<\/p>\n

Emotional State Over Time<\/u><\/p>\n

Initially, this chart appears chaotic, as though a regular day is an emotional rollercoaster, but keep in mind, that the emotional range is not extreme, and if the dimensions of the graph are transformed to visually reflect the emotional range, it appears more accurate. Additionally, it was comforting to know, that even during a stressful period (nearing the end of a school semester), I experience regular stretches of general happiness.<\/p>\n


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Click on images to be brought to the Google Sheets document<\/a> where the charts can be viewed large-scale.<\/em><\/p>\n

Multitasking Over Time<\/u><\/p>\n

Most of the time I was engaged in some level of multitasking. Particularly on this day, as I started the period with learning how to use a new slow cooker and making a stew, so tending to the stew and learning this new device served as a backdrop to all the other activities. There were also times throughout the day where I hyper multitasked (e.g., 6:15pm: Had a bath and read school texts in there (best place to do so) while doing a face mask. Used sample of ‘Ginseng Renewal Cream’ from Sephora<\/em>.) Why not combine self-care, school, and relaxation all in one \u2013and while<\/em> the stew is cooking!<\/p>\n

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Procrastination Over Time<\/u><\/p>\n

Initially this section was called \u201cdistractions\u201d but I changed it to procrastination, as I felt that most of my distractions were intentional acts of avoidance, methods to avoid focusing on my schoolwork, the necessary goal of the day. Those periods where procrastination is at 0 represent when I was able to focus on schoolwork or complete a necessary task for basic functioning.<\/p>\n

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All Levels Over Time<\/u><\/p>\n

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I worked out all this data specifically so I could compare it to look for correlations, or interesting patterns. Here are some of my initial observations:<\/p>\n