Shared Attention
TAoN No. 161: Perception meets connection (and vice versa). Plus a new Icebreaker
Hello from New Orleans, where it’s rather humid but could be worse. Today, a word on behalf of noticing as a shared activity.
Typically this might mean something as simple as taking a walk with a friend and how that can enhance your experience of a place. Or consider research (The Wall Street Journal gift link) finding that couples who “tried new activities together” for 90 minutes a week got a relationship boost: “Couples are more likely to discover something new if they experience something unfamiliar together.” Makes sense!
But recently, I’ve backed into another variation on sharing attention — even when the sharers are physically apart.
Longtime readers know that every year I make a (generally silly) calendar with a (usually absurd) theme illustrated by pictures I take over a period months: all the bollards in my neighborhood, for example. It’s a low-key, almost ambient prompt that gives me something to look out for on walks and bike rides.
My current theme is discarded seating. (Again: absurd.)
When I mentioned this to E, she asked if I’d seen the discarded chairs outside a house on a particular block — which she happened to have taken a picture of. Then, of course, she started noticing other examples when she walked the dog. And she started photographing those:
So now we’re both noticing discarded seating, together and separately. For starters, that means the resulting 2025 calendar will be a collaboration, which is a fun turn of events. (Plus it’s a prod to step up my game!)
But on a deeper level, it’s also a nice way to combine perception and connection.
Obviously, this sort of attentional team-up could involve pairs (or larger groups) of friends, colleagues, fellow students, etc.; attending to the same physical environment, or to distant ones; over a specific period of time or an open-ended one. It could lead to collaboration, or simply serve as prompts to think of each other. You could make it part of a game, a competition, even a sort of attention-accountability check. There are, I suspect, plenty of ways like this to share attention. I’d love to hear your variations and ideas!
WHO DOESN’T LOVE STICKERS?
To those of you interested in sticker culture after reading last time’s post on collaborating with strangers: There was some useful intel in the comments to that post.
James points out the book Stick 'em Up. Melissa found the book Unsmashed. Jennifer notes there are several volumes of a zine called Stick Up Kids. And Rebecca shares the trailer below for Sticker Movie, which seems to be forthcoming and looks fun!
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Noticing is about other people, too. The Icebreaker series aims to help with that. There’s a central collection spot for all the icebreakers to date, here.
Today’s icebreaker comes from an interview with Julia Beck, a staff writer at The Atlantic, on an episode of KERA’s Think. Beck was talking about her article “What the Suburb Haters Don’t Understand,” and mentioned this conversational game she’d been playing with colleagues:
“Build” your dream strip mall, with five chain establishments — the strip mall of your heart.
“You don’t have to live in the strip mall, or have all your needs met there,” she added. “It’s just, what would you most like to spend time in.” Her picks: Target, Barnes & Noble (with a Starbucks, she specified, admitting that this is a cheat), Alta, Panera Bread, and an AMC Movie theater. Funny idea: You don’t often hear people stand up for strip malls!
Please send your favorite icebreaker (whether you made it up or found it elsewhere) to consumed@robwalker.net. If I use your icebreaker you’ll get a free three-month sub to the paid edition of TAoN (or some other fun prize if you’re already a supporter).
IN OTHER NEWS
For Fast Company, I wrote about the delivery robot that became a star of John Mulaney’s Netflix show.
Mason Currey (Subtle Maneuvers) announces Worm School: “These will be brief, actionable dispatches, with exercises you can try at home and prompts for further discussion in the comments.” Sounds cool! More here.
Is Starbucks less interested in being a “third place”? (Here’s a piece about the benefits of third places, which may be less common than they were. And here’s my post about finding a fourth place.)
List of SAMO slogans.
List of inventors killed by their inventions. (Via The Neighborhoods.)
Appreciating weeds.
Photos of the “top-secret nuclear bunker that was built underneath the luxurious Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia to house all 535 members of Congress in the event of a nuclear attack,” by Alastair Philip Wiper, via PetaPixel.
Gardening is noticing.
OKAY THAT’S IT!
As always, I value your feedback (suggestions, critiques, positive reinforcement, constructive insults directed at me, not at anyone else, etc.), as well as your tips or stories or personal noticing rituals, things we need a word for, and of course your icebreakers: consumed@robwalker.net. Or use the comments.
—> Or just click the heart symbol. That always makes my day.
And thanks for reading …
rw
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All this by Rob Walker PO Box 171, 748 Mehle St., Arabi LA 70032. Send me mail!
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I LOVE dream strip mall! Mine has Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Swatch, See’s Candy and of course a Cinnabon!
A while back I collected photographs of what I called Found Furniture. I let a few friends know what I was doing, some sent me locations to check out and get a photo. In the end I had a pretty good collection of photos and made a BLURB book with 29 of the photos. with the title "DEFINITIONS FOR FURNISHING A ROOM