Zerebria

Going to a mall on Saturday is not precisely my idea of fun, but that’s exactly what I did the other day, obeying a call of duty. The experience, in any case, was very worthwhile as a sociological experiment; in our society, where everybody goes to the same places at the same time, there was a very picturesque crowd gathered there, rivers of people through the halls, a lot to see as I was in my scientific mood.

I had never realized before to what extend a place like that divides our attention. Everything conspires against a united mind, everything is flash, buzz, dispersion. Observing my fellow humans there (which to me -and I know I’m weird here- were more interesting than the furious consumerism), I noticed in their attention, the following simultaneous divisions (I would normally have been only pissed off, but, like I said, I was in a scientific mood):

• Consciously being watched: malls, there is no doubt about it, are the modern interaction spaces. Some people even call them the new temples. Many people go there just to feel that they are a part of something. Watching and being watched has an essential role in the mall’s life cycle. You don’t simply acquire things: you watch and get ideas, set examples and precedents, favor serendipity… Inside the temple, it is acceptable to watch and being watched. We all become brothers in consumption.
• Disperse attention: different as they might be, a mall is always some kind of dome where you are bombed with an intense load of stimulus. Perceptive attention is on stake, and a lot of contrary forces struggle for our attention at the same time, using any resource at hand: color flashes, muzak, a guy in a suit, a car on top of a column… and above all this: etcetera.
• Walking: the basic unit of movement, from point A to B, using both legs alternative, gets obstructed, detoured or stimulated by the mall’s permanent and ephemeral architectures. The consumer shows all kind of undetermined pauses, of unpredictable effects for fellow walkers.
• Lateral stimulus: it is easy to collide in a crowded mall. The chances are you usually walk ahead, but you would die before missing the action happening in all those lateral shop windows. As a result, the step goes in one direction and the eye in another.
• One’s own train of thought. And yet, could you believe it?, some people still find the time to have a thought of their own, in addition to all the rest. Or a slice of thought at least. You can read it in their faces. It usually lasts very little, but it introduces a new uncertainty factor in the equation.

The mixture of those elements produces a typical walking style, and is also a prove of the versatility of human mind, which can run single, serial, laser-like processes (100% of attention focused on one direction), and also simultaneous, parallel, infinitely atomized ones (like here). Maybe you are a mall animal and this post feels to you like trying to teach piano to Beethoven; but don’t forget that the things that we are more used to are precisely the easiest to forget…

How do you feel about those “temples”? Do you (really) like them? Do you enter them with a preset plan (and stick to it)? Or do you just let yourself go? Any alternative of massive social space?

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