PERMEATE: a pilot study and a protocol for ethnographic research on meta-attention

In recent years, “attention” has become increasingly important as a scientific and philosophical topic, as an object of empirical research, and more broadly, as a key concern in societal debates about the digital attention economy. Important theoretical work on attention has been undertaken in philosophy, sociology and anthropology, along with rigorous psychological and neuroscientific studies on specific cognitive attentional processes. However, there is a lack of distinct concepts and concrete methods for conducting interdisciplinary investigations of attentional phenomena and dynamics taking place “in the wild” beyond the confines of labs and other controlled experimental settings. Based on a pilot study undertaken at a three-day silent retreat in rural Denmark, this article presents a protocol for mixed-methods studies of attentional experiences and meta-attentional practices. Combining methods ranging from self-observation and interviews to logbooks and sensors, the proposed Protocol for Ethnographic Research on MEta-ATtEntion (PERMEATE) offers a general framework for interdisciplinary research of human attention in the age of digital distraction.