Tag: Attention

  • Daily Gleanings (29 May 2019)

    Freedom introduces Pause, a new Chrome extension that enforces a short pause before allowing you to open distracting websites. According to the extension’s description, When loading a distracting website, Pause creates a gentle interruption by displaying a calming green screen.  After pausing for 5 seconds, you can then choose to continue to the site –…

  • Daily Gleanings (8 May 2019)

    De Gruyter Open has a number of volumes in classical and Ancient Near Eastern studies via open access. HT: AWOL Freedom continues the dialog over Apple’s added rules that effectively removed much of Freedom’s functionality for new iOS users. For background, see: Freedom Has Been Temporarily Removed from the App Store How to Download Freedom…

  • Technology and Distraction

    Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google, discusses at TED the interplay between technology, attention, and distraction. For additional discussion of this TED talk, see Alexandra Dempsey’s post on the Freedom blog. For additional discussion the significance of focus, the importance of guarding it, and a helpful tool to that end, see Focus—there’s an app for…

  • Scheduling focus

    The folks at Freedom have a helpful tutorial about “how to be more productive in the afternoon.” The same principles, though, will apply also to the mornings or whenever one’s preferred time is for focused work.   For additional discussion of Freedom, the significance of focus, and the importance of guarding it, see Focus—there’s an…

  • Better attention than a goldfish

    A recent study commissioned by Microsoft Canada found, disturbingly, that the human participants’ average attention spans had fallen to 8 seconds, a shorter time frame than measured for goldfish (Evernote, New York Times). One of the major suspected drivers of these results is the propensity of the participants to use a mobile device while “paying attention” to…