These notes from the recent
Supernova 2005
conference–themed "Attention"–call attention to the keynote address by
Linda Stone, which she leads by citing her own coinage of "continuous
partial attention" in 1997. I’m hesitant to argue with the phrase out of
context, but I appreciate the position expressed at
unmediated (citing
this article) that attention structures are partial, layered, shifting,
afflux. Broader questions–likely explained by Stone elsewhere–fold into this,
such as the degree to which technologies bring about changes in consciousness
(what we mean by attention?) or whether the attention-fragmenting domain
now filled up with the digital apparatus simply presents us with more
interferences and distractions (material and informational). The notes
(which I’m taking as reasonably reliable) have these as Stone’s closing
comments: