DISTRACT Project description

DISTRACT combines social and data science to explore the political economy of distraction. Combining qualitative and quantitative data, our interdisciplinary team investigates the mental, social, and material techniques by which attention is captured, retained, and distracted in the world’s most digitized country, Denmark.

DISTRACT is comprised of four subprojects, within which a range of research activities are organized and carried out.

Subproject 1 - Distraction Politics 

Subproject 1 explores dynamics of political attention in Denmark. The focus is both on ideological positions on digital distraction and on how actors capture, retain, and distract polical attention in online and offline contexts. As such, the project contributes to social science scholarship on “issue attention” and related questions pertaining to how politicians and the public interact and influence each other via e.g. digital platforms.

Subproject 2 - Coding Distraction

Subproject 2 - Coding Distraction studies software practices, infrastructures, and valuation regimes in the digital attention economy, with a focus on social networks and practices of programmers. Combining (n)ethnographic and computational methods and seeking to contribute to relevant social science literatues the project’s data stems from both the Danish app development market and international coding networks.

Subproject 3 - Defying Distraction

Subproject 3 - Defying Distraction investigated practices and discourses pertaning to socalled digital disconnection and detox, including moral discussions about the good life in the digital age and specific   attentional technologies and practices developed to limitat and control peoples use of digital devices and platform.

Subproject 4 - Regulating Distraction

Subproject 4 - Regulating Distraction explores the social and psychological effects of remote work and online collaboration in work and educational contexts. More specifically, through a combination of quantitative and qualitative data and methods, the projects seeks to contribute to an empirically informed understanding of how the attention of some actors is regulated by other actors to reach certain goals.