The Distraction Laboratory
Practice: Critical Design, Web Storytelling
https://www.evidenceofdistractionlab.org/→
Description:
The growing dependence on interactive technology has allowed the people who conceive technology to influence user behavior on a vast scale. Through the embracement of the promised convenience of the machines, the design within the attention economy, an approach that treats human attention as a mere capital, has effortlessly crept into the personal space and human consciousness. Evidently, facilitating technology has inversely turned into an influence on human habit.
The Accumulating Evidence of the Distraction Laboratory is a critical design project that challenges assumptions about the role interactive devices play in everyday life.
Problem Statement
economy be rerouted into expressing criticism against itself?”
Context
Analysis
The attention economy is an approach to the management of information that treats human attention as a unit of capital. The “need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources”(1) within the consumer culture is rooted in the fact that corporations are constantly competing with each other in an attempt to persuade citizens-consumers to purchase products and services as stated by Herbert A. Simon, an American economist, and cognitive psychologist. The emergence of digital technology within the last two decades has accelerated the attention economy. It is now reported that an average adult spends nearly 8 hours each day in front of screens solely for non-work related purposes. (2)
The reason behind the growth of the attention economy has to do with the evolution of human cognition over the years. As proposed in “The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World” by Adam Gazzaley that human tendency to simultaneously consume media from various domains stems from the way that the human brain has been optimized for foraging; meaning that humans are prone to distraction due to the fact that the cognition is attempting to find something meaningful and interesting in an endless patch of irrelevant information. (3)
There is growing concern regarding how society should take preventative measures against such a phenomenon, and an increasing number of initiatives is being created as a result. The “Time Well Spent” initiative by a former Google advertising strategist, James Williams is one of the most prominent advocacy groups within this emerging field of “digital mindfulness”. It aims to curb the design of addictive technology; however the Time Well Spent initiative and many similar advocate groups often over-emphasize the responsibility of the individual to disconnect while failing to challenge the attention economy at its foundation; where design often acts as a catalyst for tech corporations to exploit the human cognitive vulnerability.
The contribution of design within the process of maximized time-on-device has been well studied before, albeit in a different but comparable context. The design of the digital slot machine and its environment play a huge role in gambling addiction compared to traditional games such as blackjack and poker. The publication “Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas” by Natasha Dow Schüll suggests that the design and the mechanical rhythm of electronic gambling can effectively pull players into a trancelike state called the "machine zone," in which daily worries, social demands, and even bodily awareness fade away. The effectiveness of the design of the digital slot machine results in it taking as much as 70% of all casino floor space (4) and contributes to 80 percent of the casino income. (5)
(1)https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/
9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00019845
(2)https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/most-adults-spend-more-time-on-their-digital-devices-than-they-think/
(3) The Distracted Mind by Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen
(4) Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas
(5)https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidschwartz/2018/
06/04/how-casinos-use-math-to-make-money-when-you-play-the-slots/?sh=789deae094d0
Synthesis
Like most designs, the thoughts and intentions behind the design often go unnoticed, from the physical space people live in, to the digital space in which people conduct the majority of their interaction, especially within the last two decades. The problem arises, however, when the intention behind the design goes against the interest, or even worse, exploits the people that interact with the design. In order to tackle this problem, the non-transparency of the design process has to be addressed. This is where the project differs from what has often been done before. Instead of providing the audience a step-by-step instruction on how to “unplug”, the project seeks to critically reveal the negative aspect of the design within the attention economy that enables it to intuitively creep into the personal space and human consciousness. Through the project, the audience will have a new judgment to reassess the assumptions and conceptions about the role design objects within the attention economy have in hindering their daily routines and distracting them from achieving their intrinsic goals as human beings.
Project Design
The design of the project is within the critical design practice. Through the use of websites, mockumentary, printed artefacts, and investigative animation the project poses a “what if” scenario in which a fictional laboratory is actively attempting to distract people through its product and design to maximize time-on-device. “The Distraction Laboratory” within the project acts as a critical reflection of the design in the attention economy of the real world.
A case study of the design within the attention economy:
