Attention and Distraction :
The Distracted Mind
Chapter 1
Interference
Chapter 2
Interruptions: our attempts to simultaneously pursue multiple goals
Distractions: irrelevant information
You hear someone say your name at a neighboring table
You think about your boss undermining you while "listening" to your friend talk to you
Cognitive Control: limited. We have restricted ability to distribute, divide, and sustain attention
Is it getting worse?
Humans have always lived in a complex world, but with today's technology it has generated a higher level of goal interference than we have ever experienced.
Why do we behave this way?
It's simply more fun to multi-task than single task
Novelty = reward in our brains
We act on an innate desire to seek information
Multitasking behaviors may be reinforced based on this despite their negative consequences
Goals and Cognitive Control
Perception - Action Cycle
Earliest version of human brain was there to support most basic functions (food and mate)
With evolution more complex interactions with surroundings but still have basic function at core
Today we still have perception-action reflexes (knee jerk, pupils dilate, pain response)
Top Down and Bottom Up
Bottom up - take our attention without our control
Top down - why we're able to pause and think before acting
Control Processes
Goal Management
Working Memory
Attention
Selectivity - what allows us to direct our brain power in a focused manner
Attentional selectivity - can include our senses and allowing us to focus on singular objective increases likelihood of accomplishing goal
Allows us to hold information in our mind for brief period of time
Bridge between perception and future action
Forms connections throughout our day. Not a passive process, but an extremely active one
Set of abilities that enables us to tackle more than one goal over a limited period of time
Serves as our mental traffic controller
Uneasy in Digital Zion
Digital Contagion - can spread without any direct interaction and without awareness
Facebook experimented on people with what they saw on their newsfeed
Some people believe Facebook and other apps are just tools people use without thinking of them as businesses
Social Media
People say they worry about personal information being online but won't change the behavior
Shifting Boundaries
Common belief technology is here to stay and we need to get used to it
Gap between self image and reality is wide
People experience sense of being "sucked in" and losing sense of time
People are saying they have an addition to technology
Danger in our Dualism
Our google searches and Facebook updates leave traces of our desires and longings
This information is analyzed and sold
Transparency is serving capitalism, not just democracy
Connecting everything brings us out of age of privacy
Agency in a Digital Age
Social media is like casinos - purposefully setting things up to get people to want to use it more
We have struck a bargain with technology - provides us benefits and services, but the price is making many feel uneasy (our data)
Our digital and physical lives are radically and inseparably intertwined
An Ethics of Scale
We need accounts of how data collection and analysis is being used
Need to toggle back and forth between big and small data
Need to explore ways to build more equitable and critical ecology for our digital lives
Thoughts from both readings
We live in an age with so many ways to be distracted
We are masters of our attention, but things are actively designed and trying to pull our attention away from our focus
There needs to be more education on this issue so that people become aware of how to focus their attention