Is attention a want or a need?

cumulusprotagonist · Post by **cumulusprotagonist** » Fri May 25, 2007 2:04 pm

I was asked this about two years ago.

A teacher put this into perspective by also asking the class "If you locked a kid up in a room and only gave them food and water their entire life, would they be able to function in normal society?"

*nagowteena* · Post by ***nagowteena*** » Fri May 25, 2007 2:32 pm

no.

cumulusprotagonist · Post by **cumulusprotagonist** » Fri May 25, 2007 3:33 pm

I am not talking about acting out to get attention.
I am talking about interacting with other people.
You can not interact with other people if everyone ignores you.
Thus is attention a want or a need?

John Wolf · Post by **John Wolf** » Fri May 25, 2007 5:00 pm

I belive it's both. It enquires both of those points.

*nagowteena* · Post by ***nagowteena*** » Fri May 25, 2007 5:28 pm

John Wolf wrote:I belive it's both. It enquires both of those points.

Presicely!

Terastas · Post by **Terastas** » Fri May 25, 2007 7:22 pm

Attention serves two purposes.

1) We learn how to interact with others from it.

2) It certifies us of our own existence.

Attention is only a want when desired in excess.

PariahPoet · Post by **PariahPoet** » Fri May 25, 2007 7:46 pm

It depends on the child. If he/she had a tv that showed how to act around other people I think that there are some individuals who could do acceptably well in society without any actual human interaction. But I think that most would not be functional after being raised in that kind of environment.

But babies need a lot of stimulation for their brains to develop normally. Even if another human wasn't around, they would need not just food and water, but interesting things in the environment or their brains just won't work right.

Anubis · Post by **Anubis** » Fri May 25, 2007 8:19 pm

I think it's a need, after all humans are a social species.

ravaged_warrior · Post by **ravaged_warrior** » Fri May 25, 2007 8:29 pm

It's both, but the answer to your teacher's question is no. Remember The Jungle Book? It was based on the true story of a French kid who was found in the wild. They were not able to teach him to function in human society. There was another documentary I watched in school where a little girl was locked in her room for years. She, also, was not able to do so, but I think she got a little better. I don't know how that ended, though. The French boy got a little better, too...

PariahPoet · Post by **PariahPoet** » Sat May 26, 2007 12:06 am

The dog girl did ok among humans. Her adoptive canine family helped her survive, but obviously couldn't teach her about human society, but with a little work she's ok now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBahDmCG3B0

Anook · Post by **Anook** » Sat May 26, 2007 12:03 pm

I strongly believe that attention is a need and want, but more so as a need.
Humans are sociable pack animals just likes wolves and need to be around others. Granted, some people need to be around people more than others.
When I had to go to summer school(mind you I only had to go ONCE and believe me that was the last time), my twin sister was left home alone for a month.
Of coarse I came home around 3:30 pm(school got out a 3:00), but being with the immediate family just wasn't enough. Plus, my mom was working during that time as well. She's an accountant so, she works year around with only a week or so off during the year and summer.
Yes, my sister could have hung out with our friends but, I mean, you can only do that so much. You can't always hang out with your friends everyday, especially in the summer. They are most likely on vacation, at work(depending on how old they are.), or they're doing stuff with the family.

She got so lonely that she began to cry. My sister is a very sociable person and needs to be around people and she needs to be doing something productive to be content. Me on the other hand, I value the silence. Most days, I just need a quiet place to think and ponder about myself. I'd be perfectly content living in a heavily wooded area with a bunch of pets(most likely dogs). Now, I know I wouldn't be able to live like that constantly, some human contact is a need or my social and interactive skills will most likely drop dramatically. I think I would forget how to interact with others and for a while, it would be hard to assimilate back into it. Of coarse, I'm young and I say this now, but I have a feeling I'll change once a get older.

Plus, interaction(or attention) is a essential in a development, no matter how old you are. Human beings are constantly changing and grown. If there was no attention, no interaction, that can change a person or hurt them emotionally and mentally(depending on who the person is)

Take Shaun Ellis as another example, he said, that after living with the wolves for so long, without human contact and attention, he had a had time soicalizing with his family.

Kzinistzerg · Post by **Kzinistzerg** » Sat May 26, 2007 2:26 pm

It's definitely a need, to a point.

Terastas · Post by **Terastas** » Sat May 26, 2007 3:30 pm

PariahPoet wrote:It depends on the child. If he/she had a tv that showed how to act around other people I think that there are some individuals who could do acceptably well in society without any actual human interaction. But I think that most would not be functional after being raised in that kind of environment.

Not really. For one thing, TV can offer insight, but not experience. A TV could give someone an idea of how to interact with others, but he would need to experience it firsthand to know for sure.

More importantly, TV is a one-way feed. You can watch and listen to the TV, but apart from when you change channels or turn it off, it doesn't respond to you in any way. Somebody watching a conversation between two people on TV, for example, would only learn how to interact with someone that made the exact same statements as one person did in the recorded conversation.

I think a lot of people have a hard time thinking of attention as a need because the first people we generally think of are attention gluttons (Paris Hilton, Donald Trump, people that always have to be the center of attention). Attention is like food; you need a certain amount to survive, but too much is unhealthy.

MoonKit · Post by **MoonKit** » Sat May 26, 2007 10:16 pm

Left entirely alone (granted they're given food and water)...a human being can survive. However, they'll never fit in human society without attention. Just like dogs. If properly socialized, they're wonderful thriving pets but they can live without people and without other dogs.

So, I guess what Im saying is that it is not a need to survive but it is a need to thrive.

cumulusprotagonist · Post by **cumulusprotagonist** » Sun May 27, 2007 1:39 pm

Then could you not call food a want and a need?
Water a want and a need?

Too much or too little of either of those can kill you...

___________________________________________________

moonkit wrote: Left entirely alone (granted they're given food and water)...a human being can survive. However, they'll never fit in human society without attention. Just like dogs. If properly socialized, they're wonderful thriving pets but they can live without people and without other dogs.

So, I guess what Im saying is that it is not a need to survive but it is a need to thrive.

Survival also depends on your enviornment. If your enviornment is a big city then you could not survive without attention, thus making it a need to survive. Then again I am not entirely sure of a large cities policies on such things...

A quite small town then...

...
...
...

Maybe I am wrong...

Terastas · Post by **Terastas** » Sun May 27, 2007 7:29 pm

cumulusprotagonist wrote:Too much or too little of either of those can kill you...

*nods* That's exactly what I was getting at. You need a certain amount to survive, but a desire for more than is needed is a want.

Theoretically, a human being could elect to live the life of a hermit, but human beings learn by mimicking others, so if he was never given any attention of any kind, he wouldn't know how to support himself. He would have to have been given some attention before he could live his life without it.

cumulusprotagonist · Post by **cumulusprotagonist** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 3:20 pm

I am isolating myself in my room and it feels like I am beggining to suffocate...
Which is partly why I feel so desperate to get people to respond to my posts...
This may be my own selfish motivation for bringing this topic up in the first place and the motivation for this post.

Scott Gardener · Post by **Scott Gardener** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 7:54 pm

The terms "want" and "need" are relative concepts. Technically, we need oxygen, the right air pressure and temperature, food, water, a means of disposing of our waste, and a means of maintaining our biological equalibrium, including resisting invasion of our bodies by viruses and bacteria. That's technically all we need in order to meet the goal of biological survival.

But, these goals are met by comatose people on ventilators. Pretty much all of us want more than that in order to establish an existance that serves any meaning or purpose. Society convinces us, for example, that clothing and a house are more or less a necessity--indeed, homelessness is a definitive criterion by our society of dire straits.

So much of human existance as we know it--and even the most therianthropic among us still has decidedly human tendancies, otherwise that person wouldn't be among us using the Internet--is based on ourselves in relation with other people. Intelligence and charisma mean nothing if there is no one else compared to whom one can be more or less charismatic or intelligent. (With the exception, perhaps, of D&D gamers, who quantify both values invariably with the number eighteen.) So much of our experiences are based on interacting with people. Most of our favorite moments in life involve dealing with people. Conversely, nearly all of our worst moments involve other people as well. None of us have ever been laid off from our jobs by a shark or porcupine, and none of us ever married a sheep or received an acceptance letter to college from a goldfish. Humans provide the bulk of our daily experience.

We have also evolved as a social species, and much of our dysproportionately oversized brain is designed to process an exchange of information from other people. Indeed, one of the only legitimate arguments of human "superiority" over other animals is that we have languages complex enough to allow one generation of humans to teach the next generation about discoveries to date, so that we can pick up where our parents left off, rather than having to reinvent the wheel every twenty years. This makes possible the technologies of today--granted, it also creates the problems of today, but it also gives us the potential to be able to fix those problems. It also gives us the potential perhaps some day to re-engineer ourselves and take active control over our evolution through transhumanist technologies such as genetic engineering or the transfer of consciousness to a cybernetic medium, so that we may one day in some distant millennium come perhaps a little closer to the advanced intelligence that so many humans seem to think we have already attained, even as so many among us continue to suffer from problems like diabetes, mobility impairment, or chronic pain--problems that should be easily fixable to a truely advanced civilization. But, I digress.

I prefer to apply these terms in a relative sense. One needs certain things in order to meet certain goals. One wants certain things in order to meet a goal that is, by some arbitrary standard, not particularly essential. For example, I want a Lexus RX400h, a rather nice and luxurious hybrid powerplant SUV. A Hyundai Accent would serve a lot of the same purposes, and the cost of the Lexus could fill my garage with Hyundais and leave an extra one in the driveway with some money left over. My want of luxury is clearly not essential to survival, as I've done pretty well so far without it. However, I think I can make a good case for needing a car.

Attention in and of itself is pretty much a need. In infancy and childhood, it's pretty much indisputable; neglect of children is a major medical issue in Pediatrics. But, even among the most self-sufficient of adults, a certain minimum level of attention is required in order to carry out the neccessities of life.

But, all of this so far has missed what I suspect is the real question at hand. You want to know if the emotion of reassurance is a need or a want. You need it in order to achieve a certain goal--staving off depression. That's a pretty legitimate neccessity, as I consider life more about maintaining a meaningful and purposeful stream of consciousness than about keeping a body alive. I originally voted it as a "want," but I respectfully submit that I would change my vote in a re-election.

It is my hope that this reply helps to meet your needs.

MoonKit · Post by **MoonKit** » Tue Jun 05, 2007 10:46 am

cumulusprotagonist wrote:I am isolating myself in my room and it feels like I am beggining to suffocate...
Which is partly why I feel so desperate to get people to respond to my posts...
This may be my own selfish motivation for bringing this topic up in the first place and the motivation for this post.

That almost sounded like poetry. Why are you isolating yourself in your room?

Its nice outside.