Hacking Attention, Hacking Intentions: Digital Detoxers’ Perceptions of Technology Design

• In Event: Attention! - III: Pauses and Punctuations of Experience

Abstract

Does the way you direct your attention show who you really are?

This paper uses an ethnography with a community of ‘digital detoxers’ who deliberately remove digital technology at an annual Northern Californian retreat. A ‘New Age’ group, detoxers interweave science with spirituality, seeking spiritual self-realization amidst their digital lives.

Recent scientific progress has shaped a new sense of self for digital detoxers; one that is framed psychologically and neuroscientifically. One’s brain becomes one’s self, and discovering ‘what I really want’ provides a measure of authentic identity, spiritual growth, and mental health.

Yet digital detoxers fear the same scientific progress has allowed for ‘hacking’ of their brains by technology designers, who are known for ‘nudging’ their users towards increased engagement.

Detoxers feel that to ‘hack’ or ‘nudge’ their brain is to ‘nudge away’ from their sense of self. Even altering the smallest of digital actions – like spending slightly longer on the Facebook news feed - threatens their sense of ‘what I really want’ and their ‘intention’ for how to live their lives. A hacking of attention is a threat to detoxers’ deeply held value of authentic self-knowing.

This paper shows that rather than practical strategies which might reduce screen-time or delete accounts, detoxers employ an attitudinal strategy of ‘intentional use,’ directing their attention on devices carefully and deliberately. Armed with such a strategy, detoxers feel their everyday digital activities can better align with their authentic selves.

Author

• Theodora Sutton, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford