Continuous Partial Attention: Difference between revisions
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'''Negative Definition''' | |||
'''Continuous Partial Attention = "the increasing inability and undesire to pay full attention to just one task, item or person and instead continually scan for other opportunity… while waiting for the next interruption"''' | '''Continuous Partial Attention = "the increasing inability and undesire to pay full attention to just one task, item or person and instead continually scan for other opportunity… while waiting for the next interruption"''' | ||
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'''Positive Definition''' | |||
From the specialized wiki page at | From the specialized wiki page at | ||
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Like so many things, in small doses, continuous partial attention can be a very functional behavior. However, in large doses, it contributes to a stressful lifestyle, to operating in crisis management mode, and to a compromised ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively. In a 24/7, always-on world, continuous partial attention used as our dominant attention mode contributes to a feeling of overwhelm, over-stimulation and to a sense of being unfulfilled. We are so accessible, we're inaccessible. The latest, greatest powerful technologies have contributed to our feeling increasingly powerless." | Like so many things, in small doses, continuous partial attention can be a very functional behavior. However, in large doses, it contributes to a stressful lifestyle, to operating in crisis management mode, and to a compromised ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively. In a 24/7, always-on world, continuous partial attention used as our dominant attention mode contributes to a feeling of overwhelm, over-stimulation and to a sense of being unfulfilled. We are so accessible, we're inaccessible. The latest, greatest powerful technologies have contributed to our feeling increasingly powerless." | ||
(http://continuouspartialattention.jot.com/WikiHome) | (http://continuouspartialattention.jot.com/WikiHome) | ||
=More Information= | =More Information= | ||
Revision as of 02:18, 8 September 2006
Definition
Negative Definition
Continuous Partial Attention = "the increasing inability and undesire to pay full attention to just one task, item or person and instead continually scan for other opportunity… while waiting for the next interruption" (http://www.openbusiness.cc/2006/03/08/e-tech-day-1-attention-as-currency-aphrodisiac/)
Positive Definition
From the specialized wiki page at http://continuouspartialattention.jot.com/WikiHome
"To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention -- CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment. To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized, and to matter.
We pay continuous partial attention in an effort NOT TO MISS ANYTHING. It is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any place behavior that involves an artificial sense of constant crisis. We are always in high alert when we pay continuous partial attention. This artificial sense of constant crisis is more typical of continuous partial attention than it is of multi-tasking.
Is continuous partial attention a good thing or a bad thing?
Like so many things, in small doses, continuous partial attention can be a very functional behavior. However, in large doses, it contributes to a stressful lifestyle, to operating in crisis management mode, and to a compromised ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively. In a 24/7, always-on world, continuous partial attention used as our dominant attention mode contributes to a feeling of overwhelm, over-stimulation and to a sense of being unfulfilled. We are so accessible, we're inaccessible. The latest, greatest powerful technologies have contributed to our feeling increasingly powerless." (http://continuouspartialattention.jot.com/WikiHome)
More Information
Podcast on this topic at http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail672.html
The Continuous Partial Attention wiki is at http://continuouspartialattention.jot.com/WikiHome