Continuous, Partial

T hese 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:

The next aphrodisiac is committed full-attention focus. In this new area, experiencing this engaged attention is to feel alive. Trusted filters, trusted protectors, trusted concierge, human or technical, removing distractions and managing boundaries, filtering signal from noise, enabling meaningful connections, that make us feel secure, are the opportunity for the next generation. Opportunity will be the tools and technologies to take our power back.

I don't have any brilliant conclusions to report (might try, though, if I'd have been there). The notes on the talk and the conference's theme, I find interesting.  The periodization of computing--twenty year cycles flipping between individualist models and social models--leaves me with questions about its predictive legitimacy--rings of a social turn, more recently to full blown networkacy.  And this turn, Stone projects, is answered by what's coming next, a return of sorts to individualistic attention control--more fixed, restrictively channeled attention structures.  Or at the very least, a greater measure of agency in the network. Yeah maybe.