How much attention do we need?

I have observed many married people on forums, websites, Second Life and the Utherverse seeking attention from someone other than their RL spouse. Sometimes seeking attention not received at home or in RL and sometimes seeking additional or different kinds of attention. Sometimes these people "marry" or pair off inworld (the count is now one RL partner and one cyber partner). And then some of these people seek additional "friends," "family," and contacts. So for example, an individual with a RL spouse, an SL spouse, an online girlfriend or boyfriend seeking more.  (The count is now...counting...)

An argument could be made for a natural desire for variety and novelty, but what I sometimes see is a driving need for quantity. And what about quality?

The Utherverse and Second Life as an orgiastic all-you-can-feed buffet of continuous and, to some degree, controllable and customizable, attention.

So that brings me to the question...how much attention do we need? How much, and what kind, of attention does one individual adult human require?

What are the proper care and feeding instructions for this human?


Can I take the principles of attention economics and apply them to this question?


Attention economics is an approach to the management of information that treats human attention as a scarce commodity, and applies economic theory to solve various information management problems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy

Kevin Kelly's valuable intangibles. Do they apply here?

Authenticity, accessibility, personalization... prime values of Utherattention, no?


1. Immediacy - priority access, immediate delivery
2. Personalization - tailored just for you
3. Interpretation - support and guidance
4. Authenticity - how can you be sure it is the real thing?
5. Accessibility - wherever, whenever
6. Embodiment - books, live music
7. Patronage - "paying simply because it feels good", e.g. Radiohead
8. Findability - "When there are millions of books, millions of songs, millions of films, millions of applications, millions of everything requesting our attention — and most of it free — being found is valuable."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy 


Social interaction overload? Social interaction black hole? 


Attention economy is also relevant to the social sphere. More specifically, long term attention can also be considered according to the attention that a person dedicates managing its interactions with others. Dedicating too much attention to these interactions can lead to "social interaction overload", i.e. when people are overwhelmed in managing their relationships with others, for instance in the context of social network services in which people are the subject of an important level of social solicitations.

Social attention can also be associated to collective attention, i.e. how "attention to novel items propagates and eventually fades among large populations."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy

Repost.  http://forums.utherverse.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=45240