Summary

We have limited attentional resources and thus must allocate it tactfully. Our ability to focus is under attack as media tailors itself to shorter and shorter attention spans. Attention residue means interruptions have an outsized negative impact on our productivity. We should strive to swap between focused attention and rote attention, finding the balance between self-regulation and the need to recharge by providing a feeling of control, clearing your head, and resetting emotions. Develop a meta-awareness to master your self-perception and develop the stories that explain your actions.

Key Takeaways

• Attention / willpower as a muscle
• What we choose to pay attention do defines our lived experience
• Framing errors: how you frame context in which decision will be made
  • Story you tell yourself
• Engagement + challenge continuum (focus vs rote attention)
• Zeigarnik effect: todo list to offload brain’s need to remember unfinished tasks
• Context collapse: managing identity among a bunch of different social groups (online)
• Reply quickly to maintain a balance of social capital: quick replies in return
• Bonding social capital (strong ties) vs bridging social capital (weak ties)
• Dunbar’s number: max 150 people we can maintain meaningful stable relationships
• Self-regulation needs to be balanced with need for recharging, mental breaks
• Rote activity provides feeling of control, clears head for ideation, resets emotions
• Agency: intentionality, forethought, self-regulation, and self-reflection
• Meta-awareness: master your self-perception, develop your stories to explain actions

Notes

1: Anatomy of attention

1: Limited cognitive resources

• “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently” - Herb Simon
• ADHD: 4.6% adults, 8.4% children (2021)
• What we choose to pay attention do defines our lived experience (good vs bad etc.)
• Mind has a general pool of attention / cognitive resources
• Kinetic attention: state of rapid context switching between tasks

2: The battle for your attention

• Automatic attention: learned responses that takes little mental effort
• Exogenous attention: passive, transient, automatic, stimulus-driven override
• ↑ want to limit these sources of distraction
• More impulsive choices as attention / willpower runs low
• How we lose control:
• Framing errors: how you frame context in which decision will be made

3: Types of attention

• Flow: rarely occurs in the knowledge workplace
• Amount of engagement and amount of challenge
• Focus: highly engaged, highly challenged
  • Precondition to flow
• Rote: highly engaged, but not challenged
• Boredom: neither engaged nor challenged
• Frustrating: challenged but not engaged
• Attention has rhythms throughout the day

4: Why, how, and how much we multitask

• Mono-chronic ↔︎ poly-chronic
• Time before switching tasks:
  • 2004: 3 mins (workplace)
  • 2004: 2.5 mins (computer)
  • 2012: 75 secs (computer)
  • 2021: 44-50 secs (computer)
• Median attention duration: 40 sec
• Attention residue: mind lingers on last tasks when multitasking / task switching
• More time spend at desk vs between meetings decreases time for task switching
• 2.26 tasks per distraction from main task
• People perform worse when multitasking
• Multitasking leads to cumulative stress

5: Consequences of constant interruption

• Zeigarnik effect: unfinished tasks are remembered better (eg. catchy article titles)
• Interruptions actually result in quicker task completion but higher stress, cognitive load
• Need to control how diffused our attention is to optimize around natural rhythms
• Keep a todo list to offload brain’s need to remember an unfinished task (Zeigarnik)

2: Forces of distraction

6: Rise of internet and decline of focus

• Human semantic, associative memory
• Hypermedia: nodes and links replicating brain forming foundation of internet
• Study: 2x as many ideas versus linear
• Study: mind wondering 47% of the time
• Curiosity triggers an expectation of reward
• Our associative memory loves to follow lines of thought among a web

7: Algorithms influence on our thoughts

• Targeted ads: importance of context
• Digital phenotyping: determining preferences based on online behavior
• Can determine all of big 5 personality traits except for neuroticism (unknown why)
• Algorithms for FB, TikTok, Insta

8: Our digital social world

• Social influence of social media
• In groups and out groups based on limited information
• Context collapse: managing identity among a bunch of different social groups (online)
• Reply quickly to maintain a balance of social capital: quick replies in return
• Bonding social capital: (strong ties) support from close ties
• Bridging social capital: (weak ties) info gleaned from diverse set of people (f-of-fs)
• Power and status encoded into diction
  • Studies show those with higher status use more emojis, formal tone
• Dunbar’s number: max 150 people we can maintain meaningful stable relationships
  • Based on neocortical and time constraints

9: Personality and self-regulation

• Personality: how people think, experience emotions, and behave in the world
• Stable underlying personality as well as situational alterations
• Big five personality test
• Extroversion, conscientiousness and neuroticism contribute to Internet use
• Impulsiveness: aspects include urgency and perseverance
• Neurotics have trouble focusing, easily, distracted, possibly related to ADHD
• Self control: conscientiousness + impulsiveness
• Self-regulation needs to be balanced with need for recharging, mental breaks

10: Happiness and our devices

• Study with nuns’ diaries: happiest, most positive lived up to 10 years longer
• Rote activity provides feeling of control, clears head for ideation, resets emotions
• Need to choose where you’re choosing to drain cognitive resources by flexing willpower muscle
• Experiencing positive events can replenish cognitive resources, increase creativity
• Emotion: responses to some event, constituted of different factors:
  • Valence: positive ↔︎ negative
  • Arousal: high ↔︎ low energy
  • Stressed, happy, content, sad

11: How the media conditions our attention

• Video editing is affecting our attention span
• Shot lengths in movies decreasing
  • 12-13 seconds → under 4 seconds
• YouTube’s use of jump cuts during dialogue
• Ads are getting shorter (60 → 15 secs)
• Sites and social media have discovered that our attention can best be captured with short form content

3: Focus, rhythm, and balance

12: Free will, agency and our attention

• Soft determinism
• Agency: intentionality, forethought, self-regulation, and self-reflection

13: Achieving focus, rhythm, and balance

• Meta-awareness: view yourself like an outsider would
• Master your self-perception
• Develop an internal model to explain your own actions
• Add and reduce friction strategically
• Design your day around your alert cycles
• Add negative space: transition, reload time

14: The future of attention

• Human right to relaxation
• School media literacy programs