Archiv für die Kategorie ‘Space, and the World as Network’

The Tragedy of the Attentional Commons – In Search of Social Rules for an Increasingly Fragmented Space

The majority of the workforce in the developed world consists of knowledge workers who are confronted with computers in between them. The problem of degradation of the knowledge worker is briefly reviewed, before focus is given to the attention economy as a relevant context for the issue of degradation. The notion ‘atten-tion space’ is introduced and as part of the attention space the ‘attentional commons’ is identified. Based on economic analysis, it is derived that the attentional commons shows properties which are typical for the rise of the so called ‘tragedy of the commons’. The degradation of the knowledge worker is identified as the actual tragedy of the attentional commons. Potential avenues leading to a solution of the tragedy in form of mar-ket-, norms- and organization-based approaches are discussed.

Topic “Space, and the World as Network”

Networked spaces are crucial for understanding our recent life worlds. Networked spaces of different kinds not only mold sociality today, but also that what has been called formerly the conditio humana, or human condition. Moving and living inside the terms provided by such spaces not only transforms our basic conceptions of spatiality, but also of the social, the communal, and of the Self. Being networked is not only a metaphor but evolved into a prime mode of existence, and comprehension. In this topic, different perspectives of that phenomenon shall be discussed in this topic.