Always On: a way to thinking 2.0

Scott made a post on VentureBlog about the “always on” culture and how it degrades performance by dividing our attention (resulting in what has been termed “Continuous Partial Attention”). He then went on to argue that an opportunity exists for companies to capitalise on our human need to “switch off.”

Now, while I agree that artifically augmented intelligence is something I’m a big fan of (in the example given here using software to flag emails as more or less urgent by content or using semantic search to increase the efficacy of search results), and while I also agree that there is an opportunity to make the most of people’s switched off natures, I don’t think that the always on mindset is one we should seek to avoid.

I don’t think that humans have evolved continuous partial attention out of a failure to clarify data. On the contrary I think it is a way of taking in more data simultaneously. And more to the point, I think there are huge benefits from the kind of thinking that evolves as a reaction to being “Always On.”

First of all, by allowing your attention to drift from topic to topic, your attention is always engaged, removing the problem of staring blankly at data that your mind is not processing. For example, as I write this, my eyes stray to my netvibes, checking my RSS; I am chatting on MSN; listening to music. Thus when I cannot think of what to say, my brain naturally moves my attention to another task, i.e. maximising my efficiency.

Let me clarify something first. You have your conscious, “concentrated” [sic] attention (henceforth “majority partial attention”). This is what you think you’re thinking about. Then you have your partial conscious attention, as mentioned above (minority partial attention). Then there is your subconscious attention which (as far as I understand/can tell) focuses on nothing, instead picking up everything. Partial continuous attention therefore lets your subconscious pick up things you have decided you want picked up, but without you thinking about it. I’m not sure if this is a great explanation, so let me use an example:

You are in aforesaid VC briefing. You tag “partners” and “presenter” as data sources for your (minority) partial attention, you choose to look at your blackberry and read a message (majority-partial). Your ears take in the conversation and your mind then cross references your tagged data against your internal keyword list and then captures your attention using flags (e.g. exit strategy, potential market. A typical VC would have “red flags” for certain entrepreneurial statements such as “No one can do what we’re doing” or “our architecture is more scalable than google’s“). Now obviously there are an infinite gradation of flags, not just red/green but you get the idea. When someone says something stupid, you react.

So what we need to do, is not so much avoid partial continuous attention, but instead learn how to, for example, take in more information subconsciously without comprising the granularity of the flag&tag, or to change from topic to topic very quickly, minimising task-cycle lag. One of the ways of doing this is not to fight to keep your attention in one place, as this only prevents your mind from cycling through its task list. Equally, try and avoid having too many tasks on the go that are non-vital (as in my experience at least I check every possible task during a drift cycle).

Also, I think it needs pointing out that being always on has benefits of its own. As well as the obvious keeping abreast of events, removing geographical boundaries by allowing near-instantaneous global synchronistion of understanding (i.e. personal awareness of data [at least in this example]), being always on also prevents ideas from being lost. One thing I find being plugged in, to events, to conversations, is that they trigger ideas in my head. This leads on to another idea I have about how we think, which I will blog later, but to the point- when always on, such ideas can be instantly transmitted and stored. How many good ideas have been lost by people having no means to put it out in the public domain to be stored, reviewed, improved? I mean sure, if it’s good enough you won’t forget, but the point stands.

In summary, to repeat what I said to Scott in person: I think it the onus is not on companies to provide technology to save us from being Always On, but instead to provide new methods of thinking that make the most of it.

Like I put it to him: surely the best way is to think about what would be better and then find out how to get there. I think the benefits of A/O are vast, we just need to teach ourselves how to get them. New ways of thinking for new ways of living. That’s thinking 2.0