The attention economy at home in : the main line · 362
lay, meals without conversation, and bedtime battles when the day’s connection quota was unpaid. Couples also This is not a crusade against technology. It is a warning about attention as the raw material of attachment — 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. Behaviour labelled “attention seeking” is often attention needing. Punishment for bids trains quieter loneliness.
This is not a crusade against technology. It is a warning about attention as the raw material of attachment — as scarce now as sleep in the first year. 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 copy the scroll.
More conflicts at transitions, flatter play, meals without conversation, and bedtime battles when the day’s connection quota was unpaid. Couples also erode — co-parenting warmth thins when both adults are half-present. Children may prefer devices because devices answer instantly. The home then competes with engineered dopamine instead of offering reliable human rhythm.
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.
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
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