Wednesday, October 11, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
17
Warding off the disease of ‘constant partial attention’
By Jim Cornelius
News Editor
You’re in the middle of
a project, fully absorbed.
Your phone beeps with that
special tone you chose for
text notifications. Without a
second’s thought, you drop
what you’re doing and reach
for that ever-present device,
concentration broken, project
derailed.
The music’s great at the
concert, a band you’ve loved
for years. But you can’t just
be in the moment and experi-
ence the music — you have
to Snapchat it to your friends,
over and over and over again.
We’ve all seen this; most
all of us have done this or
something like it. Frequently.
We’re in the grip of a com-
pulsion that’s no less pow-
erful than a drug addiction.
And, while it’s not anything
like as pervasively destruc-
tive as drug addiction, it’s not
good for us — and we know
it.
The Guardian newspa-
per recently ran an article on
the addictive and distractive
power of our smart phones
and social media. The piece
quotes technology writer Nir
Eyal:
“The technologies we
use have turned into com-
pulsions, if not full-fledged
addictions,” Eyal writes. “It’s
the impulse to check a mes-
sage notification. It’s the pull
to visit YouTube, Facebook,
or Twitter for just a few min-
utes, only to find yourself still
tapping and scrolling an hour
later.” None of this is an acci-
dent, he writes. It is all “just
as their designers intended.”
Any maker of any product
wants to make you crave it.
As my co-workers can attest,
I can stand in one spot and eat
a whole bag of peanut butter
cups. Even as I’m enjoying
that sublime combination of
peanut butter and chocolate,
I feel disgusted with myself,
knowing full well I’m going
to feel slightly sick and loggy
for the rest of the afternoon
because of it. I feel exactly
the same way when I realize
that I’ve just lost an hour to
mindless scrolling through
Facebook.
It’s not that I don’t value
social media and the connec-
tivity it provides. As a student
of history, it’s helped me dis-
cover new information, led
to new paths of inquiry, and I
love sharing discoveries with
like-minded folks, some of
whom I know only through
“virtual” interaction. That’s
good stuff. I try really hard
to stay in that lane. But the
pull of the mindless scroll-
and-click is strong as a rip
current.
When the people who
invented this stuff start
unplugging, it’s probably a
sign that there’s a problem.
As The Guardian notes,
Justin Rosenstein, who
invented the Facebook “Like”
button, is trying to curtail his
own smartphone and social
media use.
There is growing concern
that as well as addicting
users, technology is contrib-
uting toward so-called “con-
tinuous partial attention,”
severely limiting people’s
ability to focus, and possi-
bly lowering IQ. One recent
study showed that the mere
presence of smartphones
damages cognitive capacity
— even when the device is
turned off.
“Everyone is distracted,”
Rosenstein says. “All of the
time.”
It is revealing that many of
these younger technologists
are weaning themselves off
their own products, send-
ing their children to elite
Silicon Valley schools where
iPhones, iPads and even
laptops are banned. They
appear to be abiding by a
Biggie Smalls lyric from their
own youth about the perils of
dealing crack cocaine: never
get high on your own supply.
It was Rosenstein’s col-
league, Leah Pearlman,
then a product manager at
Facebook and on the team
that created the Facebook
“like,” who announced the
feature in a 2009 blogpost.
Now 35 and an illustra-
tor, Pearlman confirmed via
email that she, too, has grown
disaffected with Facebook
“likes” and other addic-
tive feedback loops. She has
installed a web browser plug-
in to eradicate her Facebook
news feed, and hired a social
media manager to monitor
her Facebook page so that
she doesn’t have to.
Since I’m hardly in a posi-
tion to hire a social media
manager, I guess I’m on my
own in trying to master the
technology instead of letting
it master me.
I try to set the phone aside
entirely when I go home, and
resist the impulse to grab it
instantaneously, mindlessly,
when a text notification or a
Facebook message pings. It
can bide a while. I turn the
thing off when I’m in the
woods. I’ve revived an old
habit, one that I established in
my childhood: I carry a book
with me everywhere. That
way, when I have a down
“waiting for a train” moment,
I have something more pro-
ductive to do than whip out
the phone and start scroll-
ing. It’s amazing how much
reading I can do in those odd
moments I’ve been spending
swept up in the social media
current. And I’m filling my
head and heart with some-
thing I actually want there,
instead of a lot of useless
noise, angst and negativity
that I don’t want but can’t
seem to avoid.
The thought that I’m liv-
ing in a state of self-inflicted
“continuous partial attention”
horrifies me — especially
when I can feel it happening.
I am assembling an arsenal of
techniques to ward it off. If
you’ve got a trick or two, I’d
love to hear them. Message
me.
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