Your Attention and Kedi, the cats of Istanbul

Kedi follows the life of street cats throughout Istanbul. They munch off local bakeries and restaurants, keep cities clear of sewer rats, and strategically thrive with the local communities. The documentary is a reminder of the stillness in life outside of the digital world.

I have a confession: engaging with the content in Kedi was difficult, likely because Kedi lacks the attention grabbers that my nearby distractions offer: pop-ups for texts, a buzz for a new Snapchat, and endless dings from Facebook Messenger. My habits have not quite wired me to focus my attention on a documentary in which cats roam the streets like nomads of Istanbul. On the contrary, the cats in Kedi are actively placing their attention toward a specific goal they have, whether it be that fish from the local market or another sewage rat to capture. Human culture has become intertwined with devices and interfaces that are competing for user attention, which has made it harder for me to enjoy the small things in life and instead, foster a mechanical and mindless personality. I long to be a Kedi cat.

Tristan Harris, former Google Design Ethicist now spearheading the Center for Humane Technology, compares our devices to slot machines. When refreshing Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, we're all faced with the loading icon and await an eye-catching notification pop-up. Facebook alerts us of an event that a few friends are attending in the near-future. Twitter tells us about a tweet that has garnered the attention of several people we follow. Instagram shows new stories that have posted since the last time we checked the app. And, unlike a Google Search, where clicking page by page gives an impression of a finite end to the search pages, the refreshing circle of doom gives the psychological imprint of infinite, never-ending possibilities of our social feeds. So we tend to keep scrolling, scrolling, and scrolling. And the slot machine keeps rolling, rolling, and rolling until we become lucky enough to leave with large sums of money.  Our attention has been locked to our screens, taking the attention and time away that could have been spent with a family member sitting a mere meter away.

Kedi cats have their attention laser-focused on a specific object of desire, whether it requires stealthy gliding in restaurant seating to collect scraps, deliriously pawing at windowsills for food, or hissing at any passing creature to exert and maintain alpha feline status. The cats are an essential part of Istanbul's culture. They roam the streets and various people care for them, but the cats never belong to one single household. They simply be with their environment and circumstance while maintaining focus on what they deem important. In essence, they behave opposite of humans, whose attention and focus have been overtaken by the addictive design of the digital world.

I do not have a solution for the growing issue of attention with tech development. (There are proposals here from the Center of Humane Technology.) However, I do know that we can all individually work toward being actively aware of where we spend our time and focus our attention. It is said that our priorities are reflected in how we spend our time, but I'd argue that the age of slot machine technology, we lack the awareness of where our attention wanes.

Kedi cats are able to grab that fish and catch that rat once they set their mind to the task. They remind us that we can actively achieve what we want without concerning ourselves too much with the illusion that others are watching and judging, or worse, going to events without us (FOMO is too real these days).