Continuous Partial Attention
Mike Rohde wrote the other day on a podcast that addressed the concept of “Continuous Partial Attention”. As Mike points out, this is not about multitasking, but the continuous monitoring of possible inputs from technology. It also is based on the premise that the modern geek is constantly connected to the “Network”. I count myself among these modern geeks.
I should start this out by defining what my inputs are. Throughout the day, I get information delivered to me via my palm Treo. This could just as easily be my work computer or my home computer, but I have routed everything through my treo, as it is the one computer that is on my person all day.Â
Throughout the day I am notified of things that are happening right now. I get email from more than five accounts, I’m notified about breaking news, I get email notifications of blog comments, I get text messages from friends and family, meeting reminders, task reminders, and of course phone calls. All of these inputs make my phone vibrate on my hip, and I admit that I almost always pull it out to see what the alert is about.
I say almost, because there are times when it is simply rude to stop the conversation and look at my treo. I’m not one of those people that will drop a person to person conversation in order to check my treo. I get too many inputs for that. To be polite, I simply silence the phone in my pocket without taking it out. I have it set up to remind me of these things in five minutes.
Being constantly connectted certainly does offer the opportunity for distraction. But I prefer not to look at it that way. It is always my choice to respond to an alert or phone call, or email. Personally, I find it remarkably convienient, to have real time delivery of my relevant information. If something is time sensitive, then I can respond. If it is not time sensitive, then I can mark it for future processing and deal with it at an appropriate time.Â
But all of this comes back to the concept of attention. I’m notoriously ADD, and I am often scattered and bouncing from one thing to another. But my assitant is constantly bring me back to the present moment, delivering information needed right now. All of my daily tasks are scheduled at times when I am likely to have the time to act on the reminder, so I tend to get things at appropriate times. (For example, my regular house work reminders are scheduled half an hour after I arrive home from work.) It allows me to manage my time and attention and supplies me with enough information to make adjustments to things on the fly.Â
There are some tools that help filter the inputs based on time and context. I use Callfilter to regulate phone calls and sms messages throughout my day. Personal calls get routed to voicemail directly during working hours, and the phone radio gets turned off completely when I am in a meeting. This is just another layer of directing inputs appropriately.
It has taken some time to get my inputs to an acceptable level, and to gain control of when these things are delivered. Even now I get the occasional glitch that causes a completely inappropriate alert, but they are few and far between now.
I honestly don’t feel taxed by this type of networked living. Being a node on the network doesn’t cause anxiety or adrenaline pumped days.  (Although some of the content can induce anxiety sometimes…)  All of these inputs allow me to particiate at work, in life at the yacht club, in my family life, and in the blogosphere.Â
So what do you think? Are you at peace with your “connection” or do you long for the days when things were simpler and slower. Leave me a comment, and I promise I’ll read it promptly, although it may take a little time for me to respond. 
July 6th, 2006 at 9:54 am
NAthan, thanks for the mention and your expansion on the topic. I think you have found some solutions to help keep control of your connection to the net, which I think is the point Linda was getting at with her talk, and which I agree with.
However, that said, there is something great about disconnecting now and then (another technique) to focus on one thing and not be distracted by he noise. I think everyone needs to find their own balance point to keep control of things — for me that means regular disconnection, but for the most part, going with the flow (within limits).
July 6th, 2006 at 11:15 am
Thanks for the comment Mike. I’ve been following your move to the analogue and have even invested in a moleskin myself since reading your posts. (I’m really enjoying sketching again, most of those hand written notes get typed eventually.)
I agree that disconnecting sometimes is important. Again, I have a strategy for this. On the weekends I read but do not respond to email and blog posts. This is nice as I don’t feel any pressure to respond to people. Although I not really removing those inputs.
Another thing to note is that I am a “net native”, meaning I have grown up with the net and had a broadband connection for almost as long as I can remember. As gen X/Y/Z get older I bet we will see some drastically different net useage. For me and my family, the net is already ubiquitous, and the rest of the world are still getting use to that. Although I don’t have children yet, I’m sure that they will learn to live life on the network. This is simply the way things are going.
Learning to cope and enjoy this new environment is going to become a life skill that we’ll all need to embrace eventually.
Again, thanks for the comment. I really enjoy your blog.
July 8th, 2006 at 9:26 pm
As generations emerge which are used to having the net/computers as a constant presence in their lives, I think that a lot of changes could occur which won’t necessarily be good. A small example is my handwriting: it’s horrendous, because I do more typing than writing now.
Because you mentioned it, what I’m really curious about now is seeing how in the future, because of the nature of increased inputs in a system in which communication is increasingly easier to access, cases of people with ADD or ADHD will be documented/diagnosed/treated - can you really medicate away the fact that someone has new technology?
July 10th, 2006 at 11:13 am
I think skills come and go. Kids used to learn how to use slide rules in school, now we have more efficient methods of doings things. Some people will mourn the loss of a particular skill, and other will say good ridance.
I was a ritalin kid, and it totally screwed me up. I’m not a doctor so I won’t say that these types of drugs don’t work. I will say that people don’t know how to work with ADD people. I know a bunch of people who have been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD and have been really successful. Learning to harness that energy and turn it into something productive is something that a lot of educators/ bosses/ spouses don’t seem to get. I’ve been really lucky to be able to articulate my needs, and have people accomodate my scattered work style.
Funny thing is that these people will be better suited to deal with the CPA world. Moving from one task to another seamlessly and quickly is something ADD people do really well. They are better suited to more demanding jobs where a lot of stuff is happening quickly and they have to be able to manage a lot of tasks at once. Think of the life of a CEO or Minister for example. That’s an ADD life.
Definitions are always a problem. If you have a borderline case and choose to diagnose, the kid is saddled with the stigma of disability, but if you don’t they will not get extra support. Clinically, you diagnose through standardized tests and then give accomodations based on the diagnosis. I’m not sure that naming a particular set of behavior attributes as a disease is a good thing in this case. On the other hand without a positive diagnosis for a particular sickness, the kid will have no options for support and accomodations at school.Â
But the accomodation needs to match the disability. When I was a kid I was diagnosed and the accomodation was to give me more time to write tests or extend deadlines. This is exactly the opposite of what I actually needed. I needed to be able to pace around, speak into a voice recorder and think, then have time to take those scattered thoughts and put them into some kind of order. I didn’t need more time to do things, I needed space and lack of rigidity.
“Treatment” is not a term that I like to use for ADD people. Let them be. Give them tools to express themselves and then watch them go. I hate the fact that a lot of people don’t know how to deal with a certain type of behavior, and thus assume it is a sickness that needs to modified. Some cases are worse than others, and teaching a kid (or adult for that matter) to live in the scripted confines of modern life is difficult.  When a kid is bouncing off the walls and you can’t find a way for them to engage with anything, medicating them seems like a pretty logical thing. I would argue that parents and educators should be searching for ways to bring that kid back to the moment. For me it was technology.Â
This conversation has totally veered off track, but I needed to get that out. My wife is an educator who specializes in speacial education and has done a fair amount of research into working with the learning disabled.  We’ve had some spirited conversations as you might guess. But on the whole educators are dealing with these things much better now than when I was in school, and kids have access to many tools that I would have really benefited from.
Thanks for giving me an opening to talk about this Christina. You might see some more posts on LDs soon.
/rant
July 12th, 2006 at 10:29 am
Nathan, I find the idea of turning what might be seen as a disadvantage (ADD) into an advantage! And why not. I’ve always heard your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness — so why not the opposite too?
Seems to me the idea of working with what you are gifted with is the best way forward, since you can then take advantage of how you already are. sure, everyone needs to modify some things, but if you can harness this situation, that’s way cool.