How to thrive in an age of distraction

Matthew Crawford, speaking at the RSA today, called for the recognition of an “Attentional Commons” which would be on a par with the right to privacy. He said all humans deserved the absence of noise as a basic human right, the right “not to be addressed”. 

  We might give this up willingly sometimes – for instance when talking to friends – but being addressed in a mechanistic manner is, he says, another thing. 

We are hard wired to pay attention to new things, he says. Our ancestors would have found this very valuable – is that rustle in the bushes a python? This is the reason it is almost impossible not to look at a TV when it is switched on. 

There is a new frontier of capitalism – digging up and monetising every scrap of attention we have left. 

The fields of view that haven’t been captured by commerce are getting fewer and fewer. 

Silence is a now a luxury good, he argues. Think about the business class lounge in an airport. It’s the silence that makes it feel luxurious, he says. 

Those people coming up with the inventive marketing ideas are doing it in the silence of the business class lounge. 

You almost have to be a comedian to wrap your head around much of modern life. 

Western society is obsessed by the notion of personal freedom. Those bombarding us with all these choices are presenting themselves as supporting freedom, he says. But this has the effect of ratcheting up costs of self-regulation. 

“We have finite amount of self-regulation.”

Human experience has become highly engineered. “Distractability is the mental equivant of obesity.”

The question is against this barrage can one maintain a coherent self?

The word “attention” is based on a Latin root meaning to stretch. And here lies a clue to the solution. 

We need to find “ecologies of attention”. These are pursuits like  cooking a difficult meal,  playing music, sports, making things, fixing things, or learning a language.  

It is the encounter between the self and something structured and other – “unselfing” as Iris Murdoch calls it. 

Jazz improvisation is the perfect example of the ecology of attention – the musicians are all attending to each other, alert and opportunistic. Out of this process comes fulfilment, in losing yourself, becoming part of a community. 

The Important thing is not to guard independence but to become skilled which creates what Crawford calls the “earned independence of judgement”. 

Spring’s arrival

My measure of Spring’s arrival turns out to be a couple of fantastic Magnolia trees around the corner from where I live. These are so impressive that I find myself compelled to take pictures each year when they are in bloom. Last year I happened to be looking back at 2013 and noticed a large discrepancy in the timing of the appearance of the Magnolia flowers. This year I’ve updated the set. The flowers started arriving on 15th March in 2014, two weeks earlier than this year but over a month earlier than in 2013 which was a famously late Spring.  Not very scientific, but I find it interesting, at least!

22nd April 2013
22nd April 2013
15th March 2014
15th March 2014
28th March 2015
28th March 2015

 

Wasted youth

 

Georgia Gould spoke at the RSA today about the wasted opportunity inherent in not tapping into the aspirations of the young to solve the social problems of the day.

Voting can seem passive to a generation used to direct action (self-publishing etc), she says. Only 15.8% identify with a political party – their politics is expressed through their engagement in individual issues and as a consequence they are being let down by traditional institutions. “It’s like a parallel universe.” 

Another pressing issue is increasing inequality which, she says, is disproportionately affecting the youth. There are undoubtedly opportunities thrown up by new technologies and a changing society but just how youngsters grasp those opportunity greatly depends on their parents’ backgrounds and circumstances, she argues.

What is needed is a new community spirit. But what does the spirit of 2015 look like, she asks? “It’s no good harking back to the community spirit of the 40s; we need a spirit relevant to today.”

Youth movements that are successful hand over power, are transparent, trust young people, she says. And they are deeply optimistic. “Every time I’ve seen an organisation trust young people the outcome has exceeded expectations .”

Disengagement from politics is not a youth problem it’s a society problem. The difference is that the young have ideas about how to change things.  But, she says, they need listening to.

Apple a day for the mind 

  

Slightly disappointing talk by Andy Gibson on why the positive benefits of mental health should be centre stage in school and business. Basically the message seems to boil down to reducing stress, not working too hard, good work/life balance and respect for the way the mind (your’s and others’) works. But it was very short on specifics even when he was directly asked about things clients had done differently as a result of his intervention. Maybe book sales were the goal…