The Cost of Paying Attention

MaceFace · Post by **MaceFace** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 9:45 pm

A FEW years ago, in a supermarket, I swiped my bank card to pay for groceries. I watched the little screen, waiting for its prompts. During the intervals between swiping my card, confirming the amount and entering my PIN, I was shown advertisements. Clearly some genius had realized that a person in this situation is a captive audience.

Attention is a resource; a person has only so much of it. And yet we’ve auctioned off more and more of our public space to private commercial interests, with their constant demands on us to look at the products on display or simply absorb some bit of corporate messaging. Lately, our self-appointed disrupters have opened up a new frontier of capitalism, complete with its own frontier ethic: to boldly dig up and monetize every bit of private head space by appropriating our collective attention. In the process, we’ve sacrificed silence — the condition of not being addressed. And just as clean air makes it possible to breathe, silence makes it possible to think.

What if we saw attention in the same way that we saw air or water, as a valuable resource that we hold in common? Perhaps, if we could envision an “attentional commons,” then we could figure out how to protect it...

Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/opini ... ntion.html

Good article here that considers attention as a resource that is continually depleted through advertising, without consent, leaving less for the individual to dedicate to their own endeavours and the intangible impact that this has on ourselves and society as a whole.

Have we brought this upon ourselves? Is advertising as bad as the author portrays?

finji · Post by **finji** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 9:50 pm

Interesting, reminds me of that app ( I think it was for Google glass) that censored logos in real time.

Harkat · Post by **Harkat** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 9:52 pm

That's cool as fuck.

Even though google glass looks incredibly dorky, its so cool. Just gotta wait for that to be implanted straight into mans eyes

finji · Post by **finji** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:02 pm

well it wasn't really an app so to speak, it was a simple PoC that only worked with a few select logos. I can imagine someone will make a fully fledged service in the future though if wearable tech becomes the norm..

AxeD · Post by **AxeD** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:48 pm

Yeah but the article is about how all of that nonsense has a bad effect on our society.
Really the only thing worse would be having it projected right on your eyes no?

Harkat · Post by **Harkat** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:52 pm

cant stop the future bro

besides the future is cool as fuck

butter_man · Post by **butter_man** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 10:59 pm

I'll kick up a fuss when coca-cola spray up a mountain, till then..

have fun with your ~inner city problems. bahhhh

Phigure · Post by **Phigure** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 11:26 pm

here in the US, gas stations are starting to put TV screens on all the pumps where they play some weird pseudo news program plastered with ads. straight out of some satirical dystopian scifi film

edit: check out lines at the cash register too

ultraspatial · Post by **ultraspatial** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 12:12 am

it is as bad as that imo simply because of how violent and intrusive it is. and they know it. i mean, anti-advertising is used as advertising - starting from pay-per-view channels that don't need adverts to websites offering ad-free versions in exchange for memberships.

even scarier imo is corporate bullshit that crept its way into out personal lives like personal branding - which for the average joe who doesn't own a multiple businesses means consuming and defining our image through the products we consume (or don't consume); human billboards in a way.
and even if you do produce something - say clothing, cause it's the easiest and most obvious example - you're still in the same situation. i guess the only sort of loophole would be to make shit for yourself without any desire to expand/profit.

/ramblings

but yeah "attentional commons" is definitely something that needs to be institutionalised. as well as other forms of protection from advertising like controlling the number of ads that can be used in a certain area or in a period of time

Harkat · Post by **Harkat** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 12:32 am

I hate it when they put ad TVs (instead of rolling billboards) on Oslo subway stations

You cant even sit and look straight ahead without some stupid movie trailer invading your eyes, so so bad

OGLemon · Post by **OGLemon** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:20 am

I can't wait until I can download adblocker for my brain

Harkat · Post by **Harkat** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:34 am

I cant wait for the future man

also downloading drugs off Russian websites directly into your synapses

oh fuck I neuro shot some dodgy shit at http://123realmandy-now.ru don't use that one mate

test_recordings · Post by **test_recordings** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 5:01 am

It's happening in Japan too, but in other places like train turnstiles. Sometimes it's put in a slightly off-angle space, but then it's signposted with something like 'Mind your head!' so you have to look at it. Fucking annoying.

Also, pumping out smells of the bakery is a bitch.

hifi · Post by **hifi** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 5:21 am

its like that movie adworld

faultier · Post by **faultier** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 5:44 am

tbf, most people in the street/public transports/etc these days are willfully staring at the screen of their smartphones/tablets

so much for dedicating their precious limited amount of attention to their own endeavours

hubb · Post by **hubb** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 12:38 pm

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/ind ... gnize.html

http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~chu ... usec13.pdf

SignalRecon · Post by **SignalRecon** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 12:50 pm

Phigure wrote:here in the US, gas stations are starting to put TV screens on all the pumps where they play some weird pseudo news program plastered with ads. straight out of some satirical dystopian scifi film

edit: check out lines at the cash register too

I've seen those. It's like a non-funny onion news network dedicated to dick-pill grade product peddling.

hubb · Post by **hubb** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:20 pm

need to take it on like graffiti does in the public space

MaceFace · Post by **MaceFace** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:52 pm

hubb wrote:need to take it on like graffiti does in the public space

Something like this?

http://weburbanist.com/2012/01/16/art-n ... takeovers/

This has really got me thinking tbh (oo careful). The expectation that we should just put up with it isn't right.

AxeD · Post by **AxeD** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:39 pm

Harkat wrote:I hate it when they put ad TVs (instead of rolling billboards) on Oslo subway stations

You cant even sit and look straight ahead without some stupid movie trailer invading your eyes, so so bad

Can't stop the cool future though.

Personally, I hope I don't have to think for myself in a few years. My Google contacts
should sync with facebook and tell me who everyone is when I see them. They should
also track my location and tell me when I'm going to be late for my appointments.

The Cost of Paying Attention

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