No one has time for that. Attention is limited. In real life, at least.
But digital life is another matter.
Multi-tasking in the digital realm isn’t multi-tasking as we have typically known it; it’s more like focusing on multiple different things each in their own way, click by click.
Click by click.
It’s hard to convey how much more is possible, click by click.
But it’s true.
Anyone in the crypto space understands this. Making money on the internet with friends is, in my opinion, the best meme on the internet. It highlights the best of what folks should be focusing on while living in the digital: your friends.
Instead though, most folks seem to want to pursue solitary modes of interacting digitally. Surfing the web. Email. Shit, blog posting even.
That’s skeuomorphic living in the digital realm. And irl living is so lonely. But everyone does it, especially when they first first transition from living a predominately irl life to living primarily digitally.
Paradoxically though, after living digitally for a period of time, any thinking person quickly realizes that they can work digitally in a way that fulfills all expected obligations, and that also leaves a significant amount of “extra” space for other things.
This extra space is what I really want to touch on.
Extra digital space isn’t like free time irl. Free time irl is something that’s occupied with some thing or no thing.
In the digital realm, however, extra space can by occupied by multiple disparate things, potentially.
Extra digital space is built different.
Attention space is another way to describe this sort of extra digital space. Attention space is as wide as we want to allow it to be based on the amount of things we are able to split focus on.
StreakPoints is an evolutionary global game that only asks Streakers to check back in once - literally a couple seconds maximum - a day. It’s a game you can do while doing many, many other things.
Surprisingly though, very few products have optimized themselves such that they can be done alongside multiple other digital actions. But the possibility always remains.
And that’s pretty much all I have to say on this subject. Much more can be said, but honestly, I fully expect to see other digitally native human beings living multifarious digital lives in a way that inspires others to live multi-dimensional lives very soon.
Cover image: Silent Conversations #45/46 by Thomas Stokes III
Matthew aka niftytime
