Continuous Partial Atttention

Well over ten years ago, I took a programming course given by my then-company. Each student was seated in front of a computer. To our surprise, these computers were on the company network! This made it simple to check email, etc. during the class (while otherwise ignoring the class itself)

Fast Forward a few years.

I'm sitting in a darkened room at 5 pm while the week's bug reports are projected on the screen. Some thirty people are supposedly discussing bug severity, priority, etc. The person next to me has his laptop open. He's playing Solitaire.

Fast Forward.

I'm at the first O'Reilly Emerging Technologies (ETech) conference. Everyone has a laptop at this conference. The person next to me has several "chat" windows open and is crafting a co-authored weblog entry about the current session. His co-authors are elsewhere in the room. My neighbor responds to a chat request. Is he being productive? Is he being attentive?

Later, in another session, the person next to me is typing furiously, scanning web pages. Suddenly he pulls out his cell phone, dips his head between his knees and... begins placing an online order for something, giving his credit card number in a hushed whisper.

Fast Forward again.

It's 2005 and my new company has ensured that there are sufficient bundles of power cords in every conference room. Attendees bring their laptops to every meeting. Instead of pre-meeting conversations, everyone is checking their email. During the meeting, they continue to take notes, scan the web, check email. They're working... but are they participating in the meeting?

At this same company, my cubicle is just outside of the company customer-training room. I'm appalled at the number of customers who leave the room to answer cell phone calls. After all, they're traveling to these training sessions, spending money to be here. Yet, here one stands, in the hallway outside my cubicle, talking to his wife about taking their car to the mechanic later in the day.

Always On, Always Available

Every day, more people appear to be tied to electronic tethers. I watch people in restaurants. While seated physically with their (presumed) friends and family, they are nonetheless absent, carrying on telephone conversations with invisible companions. Sometimes two or three people at one table have phones open at the same time.

The "always on, always available" age is upon us. The ever-present Blackberry handheld has been dubbed the "Crackberry" due to its apparent addictive nature. Is it any wonder that some of us are beginning to notice and view these case as symptoms of a more pervasive problem?

In the most recent issue of Newsweek, Steven Levy writes that "carrying a BlackBerry is admitting that your commitment to your current activity is only partial." His column covers a presentation, given at this years' ETech, by Linda Stone, a former Apple and Microsoft executive. Stone's talk was a plea to "consider an epidemic she identified as continuous partial attention."

Every speaker was competing with the distractions of e-mail, instant messaging, Web surfing, online bill paying, blogging and an Internet chat "back channel" where conferencees supplied snarky commentary on the speakers. Stone nailed the behavior so precisely that some audience members actually raised their faces and started listening intently.

[ (Some) Attention Must Be Paid!, by Steven Levy, "The Technologist", Newsweek Technology and Science, March 27, 2006 ]

It is perhaps not coincidental that this article appeared in the same week as an article in USA Today, discussing the decision of a University of Memphis law professor to ban laptops from her classes.

"My main concern was they were focusing on trying to transcribe every word that was I saying, rather than thinking and analyzing," Entman said Monday. "The computers interfere with making eye contact. You've got this picket fence between you and the students."

[ Law professor bans laptops in class, over student protest, USA Today, March 21, 2006 ]

Then there's Scott Berkun's recent essay, entitled "Attention and Sex" (did that get your attention? :)

There isn’t a single great work in the history of civilization, no novel, symphony, film, or song that was completed as a 1/5th time-slice between e-mail, IM, cellphones and television. Despite the modern drive to consume things made by others, time will always be our most finite resource and it crumbles when split into tiny little pieces. And it’s up to us to choose how much of life is spent passively (consuming, waiting, watching) vs. actively (thinking, debating, feeling, doing, making). Whatever we choose, when we die, we have no one to blame but ourselves for where our time, and attention, went.

[ Essay #51, "Attention and Sex", March 21, 2006 ]

Rich and I made a decision some years ago that we did not need to be constantly available. Although we have cell phones, they're turned off until needed and then used for short conversations — to get directions, to say I'll be home in 20 minutes, to ask for a quick list of items needed at the grocery. We don't use them in restaurants, conference rooms, bookstores, or (Egad!) the walking trail along the lake. When people ask "Do you have a cell phone number where I can reach you?" we invariably laugh as we answer "Yes... and no".

We admit to checking email frequently during the day and we each have a chat window open so the other can drop off interesting URLs, snippets of email conversations, or questions. But we also retire to the living room in the evenings to read actual books with cats on our laps. And Rich has learned to let the Message Center answer his business phone line after a few rings in the evening.

What Are You Missing?

Would the world stop if you turned off the phone and paid attention to your dinner — both the food itself and the conversation of your companions? By all means, bring the phone with you on your hike, but as an emergency measure in case you twist an ankle. As you walk and talk, you miss the squirrels, birds, deer, and rabbits by the side of the trail.

Are you taking better notes in class because you have the laptop in front of you? Or, like Samuel Cotterall do you find yourself "typing away, and stopping to format something, or to group a set of points together so I can understand them. I go into a world of my own, I miss slides and points, and I sometimes give up, listen then print off the Powerpoint slides later on. But I have a very short attention span."

Are you more efficient and more productive? Or are you under stress and missing out?

According to Scott Berkun:

The value of something you spend attention on is dependent on how much attention you spend on it.
...
It’s not the stress of dealing with so many requests and obligations (as real and challenging as that stress might be). It’s that somewhere in the wash of interactions and split attentions is the missed possibility they’re looking for: Meaning. Depth of experience. Connection.

Think about it.