Proxima Connect

Library · Lantern and spotlight

Two kinds of attention

Spotlight and lantern. A simple idea from developmental psychology that explains a lot about evenings on the sofa.

An idea, not a finding  2 min read

This page is about an idea rather than an experiment. It’s a way of describing attention that many people find useful, and it is the thinking behind Proxima.

Spotlight and lantern

Developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik, writing about how babies and adults think, described two ways of paying attention.1

Spotlight attention is narrow and bright. It picks one thing, lights it up, and leaves the rest in the dark. It’s how we finish a task, follow a thread or read a message.

Lantern attention is wide and soft. It lights up the whole room at once. It’s how a small child takes in everything, and how adults notice things they weren’t looking for.

Author Daniel Coyle builds on this distinction in his book Flourish, applying it to meaning and relationships.2

Why it matters for couples

Connection mostly happens in lantern mode. You notice your partner’s tired face, the half-finished sentence, the joke they want to tell you. None of that is on a schedule, so you have to be open to it.

Phones are very good at the spotlight. An app, a feed or a message asks for one narrow beam of attention, and it does it well. That’s often exactly what we want. But it is hard to be in a spotlight and a lantern at the same time.

So when two people sit side by side, each in their own spotlight, nobody has done anything wrong. Their attention has simply narrowed. The fix isn’t to throw the phone away. It’s to notice, now and then, and widen the beam again.

Why there’s no score

This idea is also why Proxima has no points, streaks or screen-time charts. A score is a spotlight too: it gives you one number to watch. Proxima tries to do the opposite. It gives one soft pulse and a question, and then gets out of the way.

Try tonight

When you put your phone down, give it ten seconds before you say anything. Just look around the room, and at the person in it. That’s the lantern.

Sources

  1. Annie Murphy Paul (2023). Shift your brain from "spotlight" mode into "lantern" mode, on Alison Gopnik's The Philosophical Baby (2009).
  2. Daniel Coyle. Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment.

Last reviewed 14 November 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us and we'll fix it. Read how we choose and label evidence.