Author: Avery Wolfe

Introduction

Over the past couple of weeks I have kept a detailed journal, tracking the things I choose to pay attention to, and the aspects of my life that cause me to become distracted. In most instances it would be easy to evaluate the ways in which the digital world–whether accessed through my phone, computer, or television–is one of, if not the most distracting element of everyday life. However, I think it would also be interesting to dive into different forms of distraction and specifically the ways in which I have been forced to strike a balance within my own attention. I will–because of its increased effect on my life–look at how digital technology plays a role in stripping me of some autonomy, when looking at attention from an analytical perspective. However I also wish to acknowledge various other forces of distraction and how each are not necessarily negative or positive in their own right. With this post I analyzed the data I collected and came to draw interesting conclusions about the effects the digital world has on my life and forces in life I agree to attend to, compared to the ones that I am forced to look at.

Data of Distraction

Over the course of a couple weeks, I found myself working to strike a balance between staying on top of schoolwork and having enough time to enjoy the aspects of life I deem valuable. Within this idea, I wanted to have an overall beneficial and healthy balance between both parts of my life; However, this balance was most difficult to achieve when I was distracted by my phone or computer. In many ways I already had a deep understanding of the ways in which digital technology most definitely stripped me of independence and uncoerced choice of what I wanted to pay attention to. After collecting data, I looked back and analyzed the various times I was distracted, and though there were moments where I couldn’t put my phone down, or received ads on my computer that sent me on a long winded shopping spree, I found that technology was not consuming me. I documented most of my information based on the balance I would want to achieve, I would specifically take notes of distractions that occurred during my time doing scholarly work and the times in which I was simply hanging out with my friends or reveling in my own hobbies. I found I was more distracted by my phone and computer, though again not as often as I thought I’d be, when I was doing school work, specifically work that, in my opinion, felt like busy work or didn’t strike my attention. I was almost never distracted by technology when spending time with my close friends or when I was drawing, playing instruments, or journaling.

The digital environment that surrounds all of us can become overbearing in many aspects, and because of the constant exposure to this world, it can become increasingly difficult to create a barrier between ourselves and the internet. For me I found it most difficult to separate myself when I was trying to complete certain homework assignments, however in almost every other aspect of my life, I do not feel a deep pull to constantly be scrolling through social media.

Digital technology was most definitely causing me the most problems when it came to different types of assignments I wanted to complete. I struggled to carve out time to read diligently when certain aspects of the assignment seemed difficult to fully comprehend or give my full attention to. Sometimes I was really overwhelmed with the extent of assignments I had to complete and it was much easier to just let myself sink into scrolling through social media. Despite this digital adherence, there were some instances where I was able to fully immerse myself into my work. Reading Walden has been one of my favorite tasks over the course of the semester. When reading, I very much agree to pay attention to Walden and I face limited distractions from my work. There were also many other things that I was able to direct my focus to without the pressure of social media weighing on me.

What I Agreed to Attend to

There have been many other instances throughout the past couple weeks that I’ve kept a journal, where I agree to attend to certain aspects of my life. As discussed by Tim Wu, this has shaped my lived experiences throughout the course of my life and I see that a lot more clearly when looking back on my recorded data. So, what have I agreed to attend to? Looking back over the past couple weeks from a broader, along with a more analytical perspective, I’ve found that I am quite focused on my hobbies, time spent with friends, and being outside in nature. When I am playing guitar, journaling, drawing, or if I’m spending time with people close to me, I am much less at risk of facing digital distractions. I am increasingly more reluctant to go onto my phone, and as I was documenting the distractions I would face during everyday life, they were significantly smaller than the amount of distractions I faced when doing schoolwork. I think that this aspect of attention is crucial to look at. I don’t believe that my life has become entirely overruled due to the existence of constant advertisements and social media being so readily accessible, but I do think that it poses a difficult challenge when it comes to focusing on daunting or boring tasks. Another smaller aspect of my attention that I thought was increasingly interesting was the distractions I faced sometimes came from the idea that in agreeing to pay attention to my hobbies, being outside, friends, etc, those elements of my life drew me away from wanting to focus on other things. Some days specifically in class it would be hard to concentrate when the possibility of everything else I would rather be doing stood stagnant in the back of my mind. I wanted to include this aspect of attention because I believe it creates nuance to the question of whether or not distraction is necessarily positive or negative.

What I was Forced to Attend to

It is easy to agree to attend to things I find valuable and enjoyable. I don’t feel like digital technology strips me of being present from lived experience, but I acknowledge that it makes certain aspects of life feel dull or boring. For me homework can sometimes become a list of chores, rather than a learning experience due to the accessibility and mind numbing convenience of just scrolling through my phone. And I heavily dislike this; I want to enjoy school and bask in learning opportunities because I do truly value it. So I think there are aspects of digital technology that are not beneficial and are simply designed to distract people from living their life in the present, even when that present moment can seem uninteresting. My phone often forces me in some ways to pay attention to things that are not fulfilling or beneficial, but are thrown in my face to a point where it is almost impossible to ignore them. Ads in the corner of websites, notifications from social media accounts, even the constant emails I receive from the New York Times send me down rabbit holes surrounding the modern political climate. In all of these instances I don’t feel that I have gained anything worthwhile, and therefore am being forced to pay attention to certain things.

Conclusion

Overall I found that I was able to live my life as I have been: independently of digital technology and maintaining a balance between focusing on what I need to and what I want to. I found that for the most part, I faced almost no distractions when it came to moments I was outside as the weather got nice, moments spent with loved ones, and times spent alone doing things I enjoy. In contrast to this I did face some distraction when doing homework or reading assigned texts for classes I am enrolled in. Though these distractions were much less frequent then I thought they would be, and were only recurrent when the work felt tedious and uninteresting. I do feel there are many aspects in our digital world that force us to look at them. Whether that appears in forms of advertisements, social media posts or new articles, companies understand how consumers work and design their content based on the accessibility we all have to the digital sphere. Therefore, it is becoming very important to examine the ways digital content is designed to distract you, once we do this it becomes much easier to have control over our attention.

Introduction

The experience of transcribing archived historical texts was one that was deeply impactful in my understanding of archival documents and the history in which they belong to. Thanks to the Colored Conventions project, I had the opportunity to look at a variety of old texts and analyze them by first transcribing the texts and then searching through these documents and transcriptions in order to highlight names of women and unknown peoples. These two processes lead me down a path of not just learning about the ways in which digital technology increases accessibility and knowledge surrounding old documents, but also extends the frame in which history has been restricted to. For example, the significance of highlighting and typing out names of women is extremely important when it comes to understanding the ways in which certain peoples were not given credit for their political/societal activism due to their race, gender, ethnicity, or socio-economic status. History in many ways, has been written with the focus pertaining to predominantly white men and their accomplishments or influence over modern day society. Transcribing archival documents and acknowledging the figures in them that would not normally receive representation is a crucial piece of rewriting history to encompass the achievements and accomplishments of diverse peoples: accomplishments that furthermore, were very impactful to the historical period in which they lived. The Colored Conventions project illuminates these themes surrounding how we as people must start looking at history, and was also an impactful experience, bringing the practice of transcribing texts to the forefront and offering deeper insight to digital technology and the way in which it expands our knowledge of historical documents.

Previous Knowledge

Going into the Colored Conventions project, I really had no prior expertise or even practice with transcribing historical documents. I was going into the Project almost completely blind to what the process of transcription looked like and what types of documents I would be looking at. Through the class period and as I participated in the process of transcription outside of the Douglass Day celebration, I found myself admiring the way in which each time I returned to the Zooniverse website there was a higher percentage of documents complete and closer to being fully transcribed. One of the underlying impacts of the event itself, was the ways in which the process of transcribing historical documents brought together a community of people. It was very inspiring seeing many of my peers and staff join together for an event with the purpose of preserving important and significant pieces of history, while also working to craft an increased understanding of the historical context in which these documents have relevance.

I most certainly did not have much experience transcribing any type of document, so as I began to navigate through the zooniverse website, I thought the quick instructions displayed above the text box into which I was going to transcribe, were very helpful. I ran into some challenges with deciphering certain words as some lettering had become smudged over time, this was definitely one of the first and most frequent difficulties in accurately transcribing the text. Not only did deteriorated text make it difficult to create accurate transcription, but it also prolonged the time it took to transcribe each document. Highlighting names of women also posed a challenge, specifically due to the fact that many documents, like the one I choose to transcribe, only utilized last names. There was also limited use of titles in front of surnames like Mrs, Mr, Miss, so it became challenging to figure out which names were that of women and which were that of men. Though this did pose a challenge in the actual process of transcribing, I found after looking up certain last names I was able to not only highlight which were women, but resultantly, now have a greater breadth of knowledge surrounding historical women that were important figures during the time period my document was from.

Significant Takeaways

Not only were we working to preserve fragile knowledge of such historical texts, but through rewriting each and every word on the multiple different pages of these documents, we were able to carefully search for selected names, impactful phrases, and different words and sentences that expand the frame in which we look at different historical periods. I found the emphasis put on locating and highlighting names of women, people of color, or underrepresented peoples very impactful. Preserving these documents is even more crucial when some peoples’ histories were not preserved in official archives. Going into the process with very little knowledge of this importance, left me very impacted by the ways in which a group of my peers and staff were able to work together to create multiple digital surrogates, in case physical copies of these documents become exceedingly damaged or deteriorate completely.

I would also like to emphasize the way in which my understanding of historical periods was expanded through the Colored Conventions project. I went into the project already having studied, previously in the semester, the importance of black women’s efforts before the Civil Rights movements in abolishing slavery, and advocating for women’s participation in political movements, so as I was transcribing documents I was simultaneously building multiple connections between the documents and different courses. Though I didn’t have much knowledge about how to transcribe documents until this presentation and class, I did have some base of knowledge surrounding the historical time in which many of these documents were from. I found this prerequisite body of knowledge the most helpful in understanding why it was important to transcribe such documents.

Conclusion

The Colored Conventions Program on Douglass Day was a very valuable experience; Both the process of learning how to transcribe documents, and the extent to which the experience helped build a better understanding of the history behind these documents was extremely beneficial. I would argue the most important takeaway from the Colored Conventions project was how transcription is crucial in recovering marginalized voices. In many ways transcription is a tool for historical justice, illuminates people who have been hidden throughout most of history. I found this idea to relate to the book we had read in the beginning of the semester, Claire L. Evans, Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet, as this book provided a concise explanation of the women who were crucial in the creation of the digital world as we know it today, but went unnoticed due to gender discrimination. Transcription and books like Claire Evans, Broad Band are important and valuable pieces of text that illuminate how recognizing historical figures that were previously oppressed for reasons of race, gender, or sexuality, is not just important in building a greater understanding of history, but rewrites histroy in a way that future generations will be able to learn from. In my opinion the Douglass Day presentation was a microcosm of the approach that historians, and all of us collectively should be taking when looking at archival documents, not just working to preserve them, but focusing on figures hidden within them that were really the ones that made changes throughout history.