Attention #2
James 2:1-4 in the Holy Bible, Trans. New International Version
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism. 2 Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. 3 If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” 4 have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts.
A few days ago, I watched a video. I'm not sure if it was on Instagram or Twitter, but it made me laugh so hard. The video was about how girlfriends or wives can sleep soundly through a tornado but instantly wake up when they hear the sound of a notification on their partner's phone. This is no different from when you’re alone in a house and you hear a “strange” sound. Personally, I pause; I don’t even think it’s a conscious strategy. Rather, my brain attempts to match the sound it just heard against my personal mental database of sounds. Then it goes on to decide if what it just heard signals danger or not. When panic really kicks in is when you run that mental check and your sound bank doesn't come up with anything. In South Africa, the word you would be looking for is ‘dololo.’ Besides the visuals, what really makes horror films so scary, are the haunting soundtracks. If the soundtracks are any good, it should put you in a state of anxiety for the duration of the film. What cracks me up the most is how people of different races deal with strange sounds in their homes. In certain movies, an actor would see blood, and shards of glass strewn all over the house, yet proceed to shout, “Is anyone there.” Another actor would hear their door creak signifying a possible intruder, instead of just hiding, the actor would go out to check if there truly is an intruder. If it were to me, Lord knows, I’d try to move as quietly as possible while I look for somewhere to hide with a baseball bat in hand just in case. Also, If I were to walk into my home and came across blood anywhere, I’d promptly turn around and run for my dear life. I suppose it’s easy for me to say since I don’t have kids or a wife. But I suspect that would make me even more attentive and not go about yelling, “Is anyone there” because I know what the potential implications are. 🦚
What I am trying to say in essence is that we notice when things stand out. It might not be immediately, but we eventually do notice. You are more likely to spot a grease stain on a white shirt than be bothered about who designed it. I’m not evolutionary psychologist, but I’d venture to say that when humans lived in the wild, it was crucial for them to quickly determine whether the sound they just heard was a wild creature out to get them or simply the wind rustling through leaves. Their very survival depended on being able to tell the difference. Attention, therefore, is noticing changes in your environment, deciding if those changes are life-threatening or not. Attention is a life-preserving or life-protecting mechanism. A kitten or human baby notices almost all stimuli. But as we age, we develop a more selective attention to stimuli and filter out less relevant or less significant information. Since we can't focus on everything, we must determine what deserves our attention and when. Implicit in attention lies novelty; if there's nothing new or slightly surprising, it is generally not worth our attention. How do you feel when someone tells you something you already know? You sort of secretly roll your eyes. This is why rumours or gossip can be such an engaging activity, both for the person sharing (gossiper) and the person listening (gossipee). In Greek mythology, Rumour is a goddess that puts the fear of God in other gods or goddesses. If she likes you, she grants you fame and renown. If she's upset with you, she spreads scandalous rumours about you. She accomplishes this through whispers, making “small things seem great and great things seem even greater.” She doesn’t deal in facts; she just provides information and makes it juicy enough to be believable or worthy of attention. Rumour uses people as its distribution network. That’s why people say things like, “the post went viral.” It’s because Rumour contaminates – it functions like a contagion. 🕊️
As information passes from person to person, the very nature of the information changes. It gets amplified, and new details are added as the gossip spreads. Ovid, the poet, observed that Rumour uses different tactics to capture our attention. Firstly, she mixes the information with errors, making it plausible enough that we don't bother checking whether it is true or false. Secondly, she ensures that the information brings delight. It's not worth paying attention to the gossip if it doesn't provide some form of pleasure. A bit of schadenfreude (pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune) goes a long way. Thirdly, she makes the source of the information unverifiable because we often can't pinpoint the source of the rumour. Fourthly, she incites people to anger or violence, and lastly, she fills people with overwhelming fear. Does all of this sound familiar? This is the media industry in a nutshell — both traditional and social. Don’t forget to include the tech and advertising industry in that cocktail. They've all taken a page from Rumour's playbook on how to capture and retain our attention. We all have 24 hours in a day, during which 8 hours are typically spent sleeping. For the remaining 16 hours, things are constantly competing for our attention. Why? Because attention matters — it’s super valuable. Many people or companies profit from our attention. The number of eyeballs on a website determines how much money a company receives from advertisers. The greater our interest in a product, the more revenue its manufacturer generates. It's in the interest of most companies to trigger and reward polarisation, as polarisation generates engagement. Polarization activates our tribal instincts, leading us to take sides against the other side. Many media outlets fabricate stories or employ clickbait headlines to capture our interest — they write the stories in ways that would evoke certain emotions in us. On the other hand, social media rewards you with dopamine hits as you scroll, leaving you drained like a withered flower, post-scroll. The question then becomes: How do we reclaim our own attention? How do we direct it toward things that truly matter to us? How do we avoid getting entangled in someone else's agenda? If attention is about noticing changes in your environment, various companies are attempting to simulate these changes to create a feeling that something threatening is present. In reality, 98% of the time, it's simply the wind rustling through leaves. 🥀
Thanks for reading. If there's anything you'd like to chat about, or if you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email. I'd love to hear from you. :)