The attention economy at home in : the main line
Before the note home, pick only what happened today in The attention economy at home. Year , line “the main line,” figure 1. Another household’s pace is not your quantity. Classic still-face research showed infants distress when a responsive adult suddenly goes blank. Phone scrolling can recreate micro still-faces many times an evening. Toddlers escalate; older children stop bidding or cop
Teens raised on half-attention may struggle to tolerate unstructured togetherness, or may cling anxiously when a partner looks at a phone. Work cultures that glorify always-on focus bleed into parenting the same way. The cost is not only “too much screen time for kids.” It is too little unrehearsed, undivided presence from the people who matter most.
Phone homes, charging outside bedrooms, device-free meals, and “when you talk I flip the phone” rules outperform vague intentions. Protect high-bid windows: pickups, bedtime, the first ten minutes after school. Work messages will keep arriving. Children need predictable islands of full face — not a fantasy of zero digital life.
Parents deserve rest and adult friendship online. The ethical test is whether children’s bids routinely lose to the feed. If yes, the climate is already teaching them their rank in the attention economy. Repair is available tonight: one walk, one game, one story with the phone in another room. Small islands compound.
The note keeps , “the main line,” and 1. It is not a diagnosis of The attention economy at home.1
Figures to keep
- Year of the practice
- 1
- Figure in the day
- 1
- Topic
- The attention economy at home
- What you actually do
- the main line
Between two cultures: raising children across languages and norms in : the main lineNext essayAll 1000 essays1000