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2021: Creating a Lexicon of Future
A is for Attention
Attention is focused mental engagement on a particular item of information. Items come into our awareness, we attend to a particular item, and then we decide whether to act. (Davenport & Beck 2001, p. 20) ~ Wikipedia, Attention Economy
The management of human attention has been a central feature of human society throughout history. In Ancient Greece and Rome, for example, the discipline of rhetoric trained orators in the devices and techniques need to secure and hold the attention of their audiences. The contemporary versions of those techniques include those of marketing, public relations and advertising, and extend to the promotion of any object, event, or person seeking a wide audience (Lanham 2006). An important reference point is the definition of attention by the American psychologist William James: “the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought,” the opposite of distraction (James 1890: 404) ~ Economy of Attention and Attention Capital
