I spent some time today thinking about exactly what focuses our attention. Some things within our space grab that attention and they might not do it for the right reasons or based on our best interests. Some of those alerts that grab our attention just dilute it and take away our focus based on contact switching and the loss of time which remains our most valuable resource.
Alerting methods within a smartphone: text (MMS/SMS), app message notification, phone call, application pop up that takes over the screen, or maybe email notifications. I’m watching my Google Pixel 4 XL smartphone right now and trying to document all the different types of alerts that are taking up my attention. Right now I have an 4 alerts: 1) application alert from WordPress, 2) a news alert from the NYTimes application about congress, 3) Google Photos made a new stylized photo, and 4) Google News wanted to share something about a letter to congress. All 4 of those alerts require some type of acknowledgment or effort on my part to deflect them from taking up my attention. That is the type of attention grabbing items I have been thinking about recently.
Earlier this evening I finished up some edits on my “Ai4 Healthcare NYC 2019” post from November 10, 2019. It looks like an earlier version of my talk got loaded with a few typos that needed to be corrected. I have also uploaded an audio recording of that approximately 5,000 word text for your listening pleasure.
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