Attention ecology requires modulating between deep and distributed focus.
Evidence
In the development of an attention ecology we will be helped above all by an ability to modulate our focus – in such a way that we can, depending on the moment and our mood, alternate between very deep absorption in a book and looking at it from a great distance in the context of the landscape that it forms with other cultural objects. Valuing only the deep immersion cultivated by our good old books, as opposed to the superficial navigation brought on by the internet is like being made to choose between drinking and eating. No doubt you could live only on soup, or get all of your liquids from watermelons, but is this really how to get our contemporaries and our descendants back to the literary table? — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 425
Categorization
- APHORISMS: The drinking/eating figure — that deep and hyper reading are not rivals but complementary nutrients — reads as genuine counsel for how to inhabit a digital attention ecology.
- XREF: connects to: Attention operates as an ecosystem of echoes and variations rather than transmissions — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 531; Attention is diverse cognitive engagement, not narrow focus — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 496; Directed attention does not weaken world-consciousness but relegates the world to ground — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 881 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Attention is diverse cognitive engagement, not narrow focus
#corroborates(0.85) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 496 - Directed attention does not weaken world-consciousness but relegates the world to ground
#qualifies(0.80) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 881 - Attention necessarily requires ignoring competing stimuli to select one focus
#contradicts(0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1154 - Attention operates as an ecosystem of echoes and variations rather than transmissions
#expands(0.75) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 531