Does This Deserve My Attention?

Two weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be in New Zealand, leading a workshop on social media and I facilitated a module on mindful social media. It seemed very appropriate given that my host, Stephen Blyth, collaborated with Peter Sykes, CEO & Founder at Mangere East Family Service Centre and we held the workshop on a Marae. Peter greeted me at the airport and as I got into the car I noticed a copy of Rheingold’s book NetSmart in the back seat.

Yesterday, this tweet from Howard Rheingold, author ofNetSmart got my attention! It is a simple, elegant way to train your attention while working online to keep mindful how you are spending your time. As he says in his book, your attention is one of your most available assets. Yet, we often squander it by not being mindful. Mindful online is defined as not just going into auto pilot to update your FB status or scan your Twitter stream but to consciously think about all aspects of your digital actions.

Rheingold’s low-tech technique, a post-it note on your computer monitor, is a simple and elegant way to help train your attention. Stephen Blyth wrote up this reflection from the workshop about mindfulness and points a recent Guardian post where Oliver Burkeman delves into ‘conscious computing’. The article showcases “Calming” technology – which is to use technology to help you focus or what he calls the “slow web movement.”

The article profiles the work of Alex Pang, a Stanford University technologist and author of the forthcoming book, “Distraction Addiction.” His work is focused on this question: What if there were a way to use the internet – and all our web-connected phones and tablets and laptops and games consoles – to foster rather than erode our attention spans, and to replace that sense of edgy distractedness with calm?

According to the article, this question is motivating the embryonic movement known variously as “calming technology”, “the slow web”, “conscious computing” or (Pang’s preferred term) “contemplative computing”

Here's a few insights that I gained about the use of technology to aid mindfulness online.