Inattention has become a commodity

Tags: Social Change

The ubiquity of digital media and engagement platforms has made it increasingly difficult to stop paying attention to the world around us. It's much harder now for us to be truly alone with our thoughts; advertising or messaging of some variety of another has colonized much of the landscape and soundscape around us. This results in a world where inattention has become a luxury good, argues Matthew B. Crawford. He describes this process as a seizure of the "attentional commons" by the elite, who constantly demand and manipulate our attention.

We have allowed attention to be commoditized; we must now pay to have it back.

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References


Crawford 2015