Attention is fundamentally a collecting and filtering act for survival.
Evidence
The center of the authors’ discussion is that attention is defined as focused mental engagement that screens out some information and narrows what is left, constraining mental processing. Thus what individuals pay attention to affects the decisions they make in their lives and in organizations. — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy, 12 (
#expands, via linked claim)
An important reference point is the definition of attention by the American psychologist William James: “the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought,” the opposite of distraction (James 1890: 404). — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 5 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Like sport, like music, attentional effort is first of all worthwhile for its individuation effects. The most important thing that it produces is not simply the possibility of pursuing the individuation of our being (helping us to avoid external threats of destruction), but, above all, the concrete realization of this individuation. To take up the vocabulary that Bernard Stiegler borrows from the Heideggerian tradition, attention does not only allow us to secure our ‘subsistence’ by avoiding death, and our ‘existence’ by bringing about the emergence of a unique and unprecedented life form through us; but, above all, it enables us to acquire a greater ‘consistence’ within the relationships that are woven in us. Far from helping us only to continue in being, it enables us to become ourselves. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 486 (
#complicates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Joint attention originated as a survival reflex against predators.; Attention is a filtering mechanism that shapes decision-making — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy: Understanding…, 12; Attention is the substrate of care for self, community, and planet. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 93 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Attention is a filtering mechanism that shapes decision-making
#expands(0.85) — Thomas Davenport & John Beck, The Attention Economy, 12 - Attention is the mind’s selective possession of one focus amid several possible ones.
#expands(0.85) — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 5 - Attention is the substrate of care for self, community, and planet.
#expands(0.80) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 93 - Attention enables individuals to become themselves, not merely survive
#complicates(0.80) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 486 - Attention is fundamentally a growth of our faculty for noticing
#contradicts(0.80) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 268 - Attention functions as the ground for ethics, not merely for personal satisfaction.
#expands(0.75) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 375