9 ms·

Pathologies of the attention economy

99 points by longdefeat 4y ago

082349872349872 4y ago
swayvil 4y ago
On the other side of the coin, "meditation" seems to be gaining popularity these days. It promises to make you more in-control of your attention and less vulnerable to the various powers of marketing. But then they butcher meditation into a product, package it in an app and rent it to you by the month. Lol. Google "meditation monetization". Smell the unironic gushing and marketspeak.
kixiQu 4y ago
You know who wrote a ton about attention in the past? Monks. Reading about how medieval monks conceived of attention and distraction in both functional and spiritual contexts is useful to ground the conversation in how technology (here, often literacy) impacts our ability to do what we mean to do. It is a lot easier (given more generally available/palatable sources) to begin the conversation at the dawn of the modern, but we really shouldn't! (I'll bet you there's good stuff outside European/Western history, too, I just happen to know the Christian monastic stuff)
- Aardvark777 4y ago
  This sounds interesting. Do you have any reading suggestions?
  - kixiQu 4y ago
    The Cloud of Unknowing is my favorite monkly advice, though possibly because it's been given a very nice modern English translation (other stuff might be just as good if treated with as much interpretive freedom?). While you'll find immediately that it's talking about attention during prayer, the way distraction is discussed is still really generally useful. Some excerpts here: https://www.theculturium.com/the-cloud-of-unknowing/#attachment_18409 https://www.theculturium.com/the-cloud-of-unknowing/#attachm... Thomas Aquinas talked about attention/boredom, I think, but I can't read him unless I'm in a very particular mindset so I don't have much to cite you. Hm. I looked a bit at some different stuff but the problem is that I can't really recommend e.g. [The Imitation of Christ](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_the_Imitation_of_Christ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_the_Imitation_of_Christ) unless you're really looking to spend a while with medieval Christianity for its own sake, with the treatment of attention sort of incidental. I will think more and come back to this comment thread if I come up with a better rec. (I'll also note that a tragic portion of this stuff is dead-tree-only)
    - Eleison23 4y ago
      https://librivox.org/the-imitation-of-christ-by-thomas-a-kempis/ https://librivox.org/the-imitation-of-christ-by-thomas-a-kem... A priest friend recommended Thomas a Kempis to me, and I enjoyed listening to this audiobook version. Yes, it's not for the agnostics or the faint of heart, but it is an amazing explication of what it means to be a faithful layman and follower of Jesus.
- ikinsey 4y ago
  Can you recommend any literature or resources related to Christian monastic thinking on cultivating attention?
  - kixiQu 4y ago
    Hmm. I would say that the things to look up are the midday demon - you will see that later writings psychologize "acedia" more (another useful term; sort of represents executive dysfunction, though often especially the kind you get from depression), but I think it's fascinating to read those earliest writings that are portraying distraction as this external force that acts upon you. In this genre: the advice given to monks on how to stay focused, at work or at prayer. Re: work, copyists' complaints particularly have interesting analogical merit. Re: prayer, "lectio divina boredom" might be a good rabbit hole to go down.
    - Eleison23 4y ago
      One day I confessed a few sins to a very, very young priest, and he immediately discerned that I suffer from acedia. I'd never even heard of it, but he recommended a book for me to read, which I devoured. And it turns out that acedia is truly a rampant scourge of the modern world that is barely recognized for what it is. You know how when you're sick but you have no diagnosis, it's difficult to treat or heal from it? Yeah, that's how it is spiritually. If you don't know the root causes or motivations for your sinful ways, you can't escape them and you're still in slavery. So once I identified acedia (and it's a slippery, amorphous, insidious malady) I was able to make great progress along the path. In fact, God granted me the graces of self-knowledge and introspection so that I could further discern my identit, my vocation, and my destiny. Yep so if you're doomscrolling your smartphone all day, or if you're addicted to Netflix/YouTube, you're probably suffering from acedia just as much as the French loved their absinthe and opium. Get diagnosed and get some help from above!
      - MandieD 4y ago
        What a perceptive priest! Makes me kind of wish we Episcopalians had a routine around one-on-one confession - we have a rite of confession ("Reconciliation of a Penitent") in our prayer book, and any good priest would be happy to accommodate that request, but we don't have the physical (confession booths) or temporal ("Father So-and-So hears confessions every Saturday from 10-12") structures that put the idea into someone's head for "minor" sins. However, at every worship service, we communally recite a confession of sins, and the phrase "and left undone" usually jiggles a couple things loose that, indeed, I have failed to do, to the usually slight but compounding detriment of my family or my colleagues - in other words, small (but compounding) sins of omission. Unfortunately, I'd feel rather impolite pulling out a notepad or my phone to jot that down, and I've usually forgotten what it was by the time church lets out... (edited to add) but I could discreetly jot it down on the service leaflet. And now I've looked up "acedia," and would love to know the title or author of that book your priest had you read.
- prox 4y ago
  In yoga philosophy, the yoga sutras specifically, the idea of “ekagraha” , or one pointed concentration is very important. Some commentators also promote the idea of not being distracted in the beginning by residing in a remote place (a meadow, a hut or cave) usually under the tutelage of a master (guru) I think hermits in christianity did much the same. Daoism also has good remarks, but I am not qualified to speak on that.
  - kixiQu 4y ago
    There's an interesting variant: older Christian denominations emphasize communion, which means you can go off into the wilderness ("the green martyrdom"), but there's also pressure to be close enough to a priest to celebrate Mass at some interval. This led to the buck-wild phenomenon of the anchoritic life, where you would get a tiny little prison cell built onto the side of a church with a little window in the church wall so you could take communion, and then... live there. Julian of Norwich is my favorite (everyone's favorite?) if you want to look anything up; people from the town would go talk to her at a window on the outside side and she'd give counsel and pray for people and such. https://julianofnorwich.org/pages/who-is-julian-of-norwich https://julianofnorwich.org/pages/who-is-julian-of-norwich
noindiecred 4y ago
Oh look, someone else with strange opinions about ADHD! I’m glad that I am able to receive treatment for it - yes, thanks to pharmaceuticals, which the author disdains, but also thanks to evidence-based cognitive behavior therapy and self knowledge. It looks like the author hasn’t done quite enough of the listening to others with ADHD that he pays himself on the back for doing. My symptoms were interfering with my relationship with my spouse and keeping me from being an effective parent to our child. So instead of seeking treatment I should have just… stopped loving capitalism so much?
- dyep49 4y ago
  At no point does the author advocate for people to not seek treatment and support for ADHD. The major point of the piece is that the hyper commodification of attention has created a techno-social order that does not accommodate the type of beings that we are. And when we fail to fulfill the demands of capitalism, that is pathologized as an individual disorder. He also clarifies that the frameworks presented aren't all encompassing > I’ve learned in listening to others tell their stories over the years that however thick or compelling the theoretical framework may be, it will not account for all of the nuances and idiosyncrasies of human experience. His arguments are not about the individual, but about the systems that create and exacerbate psychological differences, pathologize those differences, and then commodify their "cures". It doesn't matter if you love or hate capitalism. You're subjected to it regardless.
jaqalopes 4y ago
I am diagnosed with ADHD and despite feeling like I’ve learned a lot about my condition I found ideas in this article new and stimulating. The idea of “pathologized” inattention makes complete sense on paper—of course if you sell attention-draining digital media you would want to divert attention (heh) from any harms your business is causing. So I grant this is definitely happening, but it begs the question of why in this environment 100% of people don’t suffer from ADHD? One reasonable answer, which I cannot prove beyond saying it matches my anecdotal experience, is that the ADHD problem is part nurture (information overload from a changing media environment that affects everyone) but also part nature (every brain is naturally a little bit different). I have always had inattention—just ask my parents and childhood teachers. It had nothing to do with the Internet. No question the internet has posed extra challenges to my naturally weaker attention, in a similar way to how the invention of skyscrapers posed a challenge to people in wheelchairs. This analogy fails with the invention of elevators, for which the ADHD sufferer has no equivalent accommodation in our modern media world. I wish I could invite non-ADHD-havers into my brain for a day to show them what it’s really like. Even now, as an adult with robust coping strategies, inattention afflicts me in all corners of my life. I struggle with the unexpected if it hits me when I’m focused on something, which leads to problems making friends or navigating stimulating social environments. I have trouble listening to friends or dates in busy bars or cafes, which is a related but distinct problem. When I’m trying to get into a flow at work I frequently get random, highly salient impulses to do other things that are important but aren’t the thing I need to do at that moment. Crucially I resist these urges, but they make achieving the flow I crave—and the success of my work—more difficult. Even in current year, I think a lot of people (and certainly a lot of doctors!) don’t believe that any of this is real, and all I want from life is to take speed and scroll Reddit and Twitter all night. Let me assure you that this is not the case. If anything, the people I know IRL who have ADHD are among the most driven people out there. They almost have to be, because the minute they drop their guard their dreams start slipping away.
- throwamon 4y ago
  > begs the question doesn't mean what you think it means https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
zug_zug 4y ago
It’s fun to think about adhd re:tech, but a less fun hypothesis is that it’s something biological not yet identified. Gov should do an annual sample computer-scored interactive test on 1000 5-year-olds to see adhd truly is increasing irrespective of increasing diagnostic criteria.
- 0xRolex 4y ago
  Some has already be done, in 2012 I think a team from harvard found biological markers which were identicals in patients suffering from autism/bipolar disorder/schyzophrenia and adhd and since adhd is a group of symptoms which can be caused by every "real" disorded listed above we found the biological something you mention.
  - modo_mario 4y ago
    Do you perhaps still have this study around? I searched but could not find it and It sounds quite interesting to me.
    - 0xRolex 4y ago
      It was referenced in the book "ADHD does not exist" from Richard Saul M.D, I'll look for the book to find some links
meltyness 4y ago
It's unusual that this was hypothesized so long ago as a side-effect of material excess, but culturally little has happened to insulate us. I for one am of the mind that the play button on my pomodoro is the play button on the VCR of my mind. And what price do I pay for having my mind locked behind such a taxing labor to liberate? Well-fed, sheltered, scanned and medicated? Maybe we catastrophize that the dogear became the bookmark, the radio dial (being dialed-in) transmorphed into a play button, or the play button into the combined lock-button fingerprint-sensor.

99 points by longdefeat 4y ago

On the other side of the coin, "meditation" seems to be gaining popularity these days. It promises to make you more in-control of your attention and less vulnerable to the various powers of marketing. But then they butcher meditation into a product, package it in an app and rent it to you by the month. Lol. Google "meditation monetization". Smell the unironic gushing and marketspeak.

kixiQu 4y ago

You know who wrote a ton about attention in the past? Monks. Reading about how medieval monks conceived of attention and distraction in both functional and spiritual contexts is useful to ground the conversation in how technology (here, often literacy) impacts our ability to do what we mean to do. It is a lot easier (given more generally available/palatable sources) to begin the conversation at the dawn of the modern, but we really shouldn't! (I'll bet you there's good stuff outside European/Western history, too, I just happen to know the Christian monastic stuff)

Aardvark777 4y ago
This sounds interesting. Do you have any reading suggestions?
- kixiQu 4y ago
  The Cloud of Unknowing is my favorite monkly advice, though possibly because it's been given a very nice modern English translation (other stuff might be just as good if treated with as much interpretive freedom?). While you'll find immediately that it's talking about attention during prayer, the way distraction is discussed is still really generally useful. Some excerpts here: https://www.theculturium.com/the-cloud-of-unknowing/#attachment_18409 https://www.theculturium.com/the-cloud-of-unknowing/#attachm... Thomas Aquinas talked about attention/boredom, I think, but I can't read him unless I'm in a very particular mindset so I don't have much to cite you. Hm. I looked a bit at some different stuff but the problem is that I can't really recommend e.g. [The Imitation of Christ](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_the_Imitation_of_Christ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_the_Imitation_of_Christ) unless you're really looking to spend a while with medieval Christianity for its own sake, with the treatment of attention sort of incidental. I will think more and come back to this comment thread if I come up with a better rec. (I'll also note that a tragic portion of this stuff is dead-tree-only)
  - Eleison23 4y ago
    https://librivox.org/the-imitation-of-christ-by-thomas-a-kempis/ https://librivox.org/the-imitation-of-christ-by-thomas-a-kem... A priest friend recommended Thomas a Kempis to me, and I enjoyed listening to this audiobook version. Yes, it's not for the agnostics or the faint of heart, but it is an amazing explication of what it means to be a faithful layman and follower of Jesus.
ikinsey 4y ago
Can you recommend any literature or resources related to Christian monastic thinking on cultivating attention?
- kixiQu 4y ago
  Hmm. I would say that the things to look up are the midday demon - you will see that later writings psychologize "acedia" more (another useful term; sort of represents executive dysfunction, though often especially the kind you get from depression), but I think it's fascinating to read those earliest writings that are portraying distraction as this external force that acts upon you. In this genre: the advice given to monks on how to stay focused, at work or at prayer. Re: work, copyists' complaints particularly have interesting analogical merit. Re: prayer, "lectio divina boredom" might be a good rabbit hole to go down.
  - Eleison23 4y ago
    One day I confessed a few sins to a very, very young priest, and he immediately discerned that I suffer from acedia. I'd never even heard of it, but he recommended a book for me to read, which I devoured. And it turns out that acedia is truly a rampant scourge of the modern world that is barely recognized for what it is. You know how when you're sick but you have no diagnosis, it's difficult to treat or heal from it? Yeah, that's how it is spiritually. If you don't know the root causes or motivations for your sinful ways, you can't escape them and you're still in slavery. So once I identified acedia (and it's a slippery, amorphous, insidious malady) I was able to make great progress along the path. In fact, God granted me the graces of self-knowledge and introspection so that I could further discern my identit, my vocation, and my destiny. Yep so if you're doomscrolling your smartphone all day, or if you're addicted to Netflix/YouTube, you're probably suffering from acedia just as much as the French loved their absinthe and opium. Get diagnosed and get some help from above!
    - MandieD 4y ago
      What a perceptive priest! Makes me kind of wish we Episcopalians had a routine around one-on-one confession - we have a rite of confession ("Reconciliation of a Penitent") in our prayer book, and any good priest would be happy to accommodate that request, but we don't have the physical (confession booths) or temporal ("Father So-and-So hears confessions every Saturday from 10-12") structures that put the idea into someone's head for "minor" sins. However, at every worship service, we communally recite a confession of sins, and the phrase "and left undone" usually jiggles a couple things loose that, indeed, I have failed to do, to the usually slight but compounding detriment of my family or my colleagues - in other words, small (but compounding) sins of omission. Unfortunately, I'd feel rather impolite pulling out a notepad or my phone to jot that down, and I've usually forgotten what it was by the time church lets out... (edited to add) but I could discreetly jot it down on the service leaflet. And now I've looked up "acedia," and would love to know the title or author of that book your priest had you read.
prox 4y ago
In yoga philosophy, the yoga sutras specifically, the idea of “ekagraha” , or one pointed concentration is very important. Some commentators also promote the idea of not being distracted in the beginning by residing in a remote place (a meadow, a hut or cave) usually under the tutelage of a master (guru) I think hermits in christianity did much the same. Daoism also has good remarks, but I am not qualified to speak on that.
- kixiQu 4y ago
  There's an interesting variant: older Christian denominations emphasize communion, which means you can go off into the wilderness ("the green martyrdom"), but there's also pressure to be close enough to a priest to celebrate Mass at some interval. This led to the buck-wild phenomenon of the anchoritic life, where you would get a tiny little prison cell built onto the side of a church with a little window in the church wall so you could take communion, and then... live there. Julian of Norwich is my favorite (everyone's favorite?) if you want to look anything up; people from the town would go talk to her at a window on the outside side and she'd give counsel and pray for people and such. https://julianofnorwich.org/pages/who-is-julian-of-norwich https://julianofnorwich.org/pages/who-is-julian-of-norwich

noindiecred 4y ago

Oh look, someone else with strange opinions about ADHD! I’m glad that I am able to receive treatment for it - yes, thanks to pharmaceuticals, which the author disdains, but also thanks to evidence-based cognitive behavior therapy and self knowledge. It looks like the author hasn’t done quite enough of the listening to others with ADHD that he pays himself on the back for doing. My symptoms were interfering with my relationship with my spouse and keeping me from being an effective parent to our child. So instead of seeking treatment I should have just… stopped loving capitalism so much?

dyep49 4y ago
At no point does the author advocate for people to not seek treatment and support for ADHD. The major point of the piece is that the hyper commodification of attention has created a techno-social order that does not accommodate the type of beings that we are. And when we fail to fulfill the demands of capitalism, that is pathologized as an individual disorder. He also clarifies that the frameworks presented aren't all encompassing > I’ve learned in listening to others tell their stories over the years that however thick or compelling the theoretical framework may be, it will not account for all of the nuances and idiosyncrasies of human experience. His arguments are not about the individual, but about the systems that create and exacerbate psychological differences, pathologize those differences, and then commodify their "cures". It doesn't matter if you love or hate capitalism. You're subjected to it regardless.

jaqalopes 4y ago

I am diagnosed with ADHD and despite feeling like I’ve learned a lot about my condition I found ideas in this article new and stimulating. The idea of “pathologized” inattention makes complete sense on paper—of course if you sell attention-draining digital media you would want to divert attention (heh) from any harms your business is causing. So I grant this is definitely happening, but it begs the question of why in this environment 100% of people don’t suffer from ADHD? One reasonable answer, which I cannot prove beyond saying it matches my anecdotal experience, is that the ADHD problem is part nurture (information overload from a changing media environment that affects everyone) but also part nature (every brain is naturally a little bit different). I have always had inattention—just ask my parents and childhood teachers. It had nothing to do with the Internet. No question the internet has posed extra challenges to my naturally weaker attention, in a similar way to how the invention of skyscrapers posed a challenge to people in wheelchairs. This analogy fails with the invention of elevators, for which the ADHD sufferer has no equivalent accommodation in our modern media world. I wish I could invite non-ADHD-havers into my brain for a day to show them what it’s really like. Even now, as an adult with robust coping strategies, inattention afflicts me in all corners of my life. I struggle with the unexpected if it hits me when I’m focused on something, which leads to problems making friends or navigating stimulating social environments. I have trouble listening to friends or dates in busy bars or cafes, which is a related but distinct problem. When I’m trying to get into a flow at work I frequently get random, highly salient impulses to do other things that are important but aren’t the thing I need to do at that moment. Crucially I resist these urges, but they make achieving the flow I crave—and the success of my work—more difficult. Even in current year, I think a lot of people (and certainly a lot of doctors!) don’t believe that any of this is real, and all I want from life is to take speed and scroll Reddit and Twitter all night. Let me assure you that this is not the case. If anything, the people I know IRL who have ADHD are among the most driven people out there. They almost have to be, because the minute they drop their guard their dreams start slipping away.

throwamon 4y ago
> begs the question doesn't mean what you think it means https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

zug_zug 4y ago

It’s fun to think about adhd re:tech, but a less fun hypothesis is that it’s something biological not yet identified. Gov should do an annual sample computer-scored interactive test on 1000 5-year-olds to see adhd truly is increasing irrespective of increasing diagnostic criteria.

0xRolex 4y ago
Some has already be done, in 2012 I think a team from harvard found biological markers which were identicals in patients suffering from autism/bipolar disorder/schyzophrenia and adhd and since adhd is a group of symptoms which can be caused by every "real" disorded listed above we found the biological something you mention.
- modo_mario 4y ago
  Do you perhaps still have this study around? I searched but could not find it and It sounds quite interesting to me.
  - 0xRolex 4y ago
    It was referenced in the book "ADHD does not exist" from Richard Saul M.D, I'll look for the book to find some links

meltyness 4y ago

It's unusual that this was hypothesized so long ago as a side-effect of material excess, but culturally little has happened to insulate us. I for one am of the mind that the play button on my pomodoro is the play button on the VCR of my mind. And what price do I pay for having my mind locked behind such a taxing labor to liberate? Well-fed, sheltered, scanned and medicated? Maybe we catastrophize that the dogear became the bookmark, the radio dial (being dialed-in) transmorphed into a play button, or the play button into the combined lock-button fingerprint-sensor.