shifting my attention to reading philosophical texts

 shifting my attention to reading philosophical texts

Attention diverts our way of thinking and perception of life. Most of the people nowadays have diverted their attention to mobile phones where here access to the internet and other social media platforms. This makes it difficult for them to concentrate on other matters as they are always using their phones. It is advisable to pay attention differently, which involves doing paying attention to something else or even stopping to pay attention to the activity one has always paid attention to. This helps in discovering other things and making use of the time to be economically productive. In our case, it involves switching off my phone for six hours and shifting my attention to reading philosophical texts.

I usually pay attention to my phone for most of my time such that I can’t stay for more than thirty minutes without accessing the phone. It requires much concentration on another activity to divert one’s attention from the main action (Odell: 96). It was a challenging task as I kept going back to switch on my phone, but I had to do something different for the six hours. I thought of meditating for those six hours and divert my attention form using my phone and became difficult after one hour, which forced me to shift to another activity. I, therefore, used the other five hours in studying, which involved reading some philosophical texts. I had to keep the phone at a far distance where I could not see it as it kept disrupting my attention. In a real sense, the activity requires full attention (Watzl: 56). For instance, when someone else interferes with the activity, he or she can make one go back to the phone. Hence, it requires mind involvement for it to be successful.

Several obstacles are possible to disrupt one’s attention (Odell: 98) For instance, one can be tempted to think of people who might be looking for him through the phone, which makes one switch it on to check. Such obstacles are not natural to evade as they require maximum attention. I was also tempted to check up on my friends, to avoid this, I had to alert my friends that I will be off for about six hours so that such temptations do not interrupt my exercise. I also ensured I had a watch to be checking time as I was fond of checking the time using my phone. It is not always easy to stay for a long time without accessing the phone even though one has nothing to do with it. I kept reading the texts for five hours, such that I became bored, which almost made me give up and go back to the phone. However, I had the determination to finish up, which made me keep reading for a long time.

It was tough to finish up the exercise. I also notice that we tend to spend much time on our phones, which we can use for economic productivity. It is possible to be using our phones only when it is needed, which will save us much time as we all know that time is money (Franck: 8-19). I also noticed that I spend most of my time using the phone, which is not healthy. During the exercise, I noticed I had no eye constraint, which I previously experienced when using the phone mist of the time. My parents were very impressed by the practices, and they urged me to keep doing it as it can change my perception in life and broaden my thinking outside the usage of the phone all the time. I enjoyed the experience.

Work cited

Franck, Georg. “The economy of attention.” Journal of sociology 55.1 (2019): 8-19.

Odell, Jenny. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Melville House, 2019.

Watzl, Sebastian. Structuring mind: The nature of attention and how it shapes consciousness. Oxford University Press, 2017, 56.