TL;DR: The Future of Attention

I am proposing a session for Internet Research 11.0 (Gothenburg, Sweden, 21-23 Oct 2010) that focuses on the role of attention in internet-mediated communication. The panelists will be asked to present very briefly on a topic relating to attention and networked technologies, with the aim of spurring a lively conversation.

While there are a range of potential topics, some might include:

  • Has mediated culture changed to fit new regimes of attention?
  • With an infinite number of channels, is it still possible to get citizens to talk about the same topic?
  • How do marketers get attention when technologies, from TiVo to pop-up blockers, allow for filtering?
  • Does the ability to work anywhere, thanks to mobile devices, break down the idea of attending to home or family within particular temporal and spatial blocks?
  • How does a new disciplining of attention (or a lack of such disciplining?) affect learning inside and outside of schools and universities?
  • Are “Lifehacker” and “Four Hour Work Week” just continuations of a long interest in efficiency, or do they mark a move beyond the workplace for such efforts?
  • Is there a consensus regarding “multi-tasking” and “continuous partial attention” vs. task focus in terms of effectiveness?
  • How do individuals create their own “situational awareness”? To what degree is our attention locationally based?
  • How have technologies of social networking affected who we attend to and how we attend to them?

Presentations will be in “pecha kucha” format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecha_kucha), and presenters are expected to abide by that formalism. These should represent positions and perspectives, or thinking-in-progress. Papers are welcome, but not expected. These presentations should be designed to create controversy and conversation.

If you’ve gotten this far, and are interested in presenting on the panel, please post your proposal to Twitter, using the #tldr11 hashtag, no later than February 1, 2009.

Please forward widely.

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