Project description
The Battle for Our Attention
The average person today uses digital technologies more than ever before, constantly watching news, sending and receiving messages, and following offers on smartphones. While big tech corporations sell user data on to advertisers, governments are rapidly changing the public sphere through data driven analytics and digital interfaces. In this new political data economy, our attention has become a limited resource that advertisers, politicians, and software programmers fight for. Combining classical social science methods with data science techniques, the EU-funded DISTRACT project brings together an interdisciplinary team to examine the mental, social and material dimensions of attention and its distraction in the digital age. The research will be conducted in Denmark, Europe’s most digitalized country.
Objective
Bridging anthropology, sociology, economics, psychology, political science, and data science, DISTRACT combines advanced data science tools and established social science analysis to explore a pressing challenge: the ever more alluring distractions of human attention in the age of smartphones and other digitized technologies. DISTRACT departs from five linked hypotheses: 1) The attention is commonly (by scholars and laymen) seen as finite; ⇒ (2) As such, it is a scarce resource that is subject to competition and regulation; ⇒ 3) This is not new but it is acquiring unseen urgency in the current data economy; ⇒ 4) An interdisciplinary social data science approach allows for solid and novel investigation of this unmet scientific and societal need; and ⇒ 5) As the world’s most digitized country (and homogeneous population and state-of-the-art public databases), Denmark is an ideal site to study this political economy of distraction. Combining qualitative and quantitative data from four case studies, DISTRACT thus aims to trace and analyse the mental, social and material techniques by which attention is captured, retained and deflected in digitized Denmark. Analytically, we distinguish between three layers in which attention is managed and manipulated: a “mental”, “social” and “material” dimension. We also differentiate between three components of given attention/distraction sequence: the ‘”capturing”, “retention” and “deflection” phase. Empirically, case-studies shall be carried out of (a) national politics, (b) the tech business, (c) “off-the-grid” alternative communities, and (d) education and workplace environments. Data shall be collected, integrated and analysed via a combination of 1) qualitative methods, including ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis; (2) quantitative methods, including natural experiments and predictive models; and (3) quali-quantitative methods including web scraping and supervised machine learning.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology anthropology
- social sciences psychology
- engineering and technology electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering information engineering telecommunications mobile phones
- social sciences political sciences
You need to log in or register to use this function
We are sorry... an unexpected error occurred during execution.
You need to be authenticated. Your session might have expired.
Thank you for your feedback. You will soon receive an email to confirm the submission. If you have selected to be notified about the reporting status, you will also be contacted when the reporting status will change.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
-
H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
See all projects funded under this programme
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant
See all projects funded under this funding scheme
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2018-ADG
See all projects funded under this callHost institution
Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1165 KOBENHAVN
Denmark
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.