Continuous Partial Attention
July 5th, 2005From a particulalry unexciting article, a “new phrase” is born:
“Continuous partial attention is that state most of us enter when we’re in front of a computer screen, or trying to check out at the grocery store with a cellphone pressed to an ear — or blogging the proceedings of a conference while it’s underway. We’re aware of several things at once, shifting our attention to whatever’s most urgent — perhaps the chime of incoming e-mail, or the beep that indicates the cellphone is low on juice. It’s not a reflective state.”
For the first time in a while, I did not bring my laptop to any of the sessions at ALA (mostly because I didn’t want to lug it between three hotels), using the old standard (pen and a notebook) to take notes on the sessions and then, hopefully, to blog about them when I returned to my hotel. I’ll tell ya, I loved it. I’ll admit that a good portion of my time blogging conference sessions is attempting to log onto any wi-fi signal. Without my laptop, I didn’t have to futz with anything. It was liberating!
That said, I think that “Continuous Partial Attention” (CPA) took place anyway, although not as pronounced. CPA is going to take place at any conference session, unless you are sitting in a vacuum in a dark room where nobody can see, hear, or breathe on you. When I go to conference sessions, I usually sit next to someone who I haven’t seen in quite a while and we whisper to each other while taking notes. In addition, we are also glued to the screen on the wall (PowerPoint or not, it will distract from what is being presented), or looking through handouts or figuring out where to go next (lunch, another presentation, or the exhibit hall) or who to meet.
My point: CPA will happen at every conference presentation. It’s inevitable.