attention is sacred

The vast interconnection enabled by digital platforms has ended up creating more of a sense of sameness than diversity. Users are subtly guided toward the same subsets of topics, urged on by recommendations that are designed not to serve their interests but to create profitable attention fodder to sell to advertisers. Instagram doesn’t care that yo... See more

This isn’t the same kind of attention we give to our Instagram and TikTok feeds. It is a ritualised form of intentional presence directed to a shared sense of meaning and history. In The Disappearance of Ritual , the philosopher Byung-Chul Han argues that our digital communication sacrifices this kind of deep attention and intensity with something ... See more

If all else fails, consider your own mortality. How many people on their deathbeds do you think are going to say, “I wish I’d spent more time on Facebook”? Keep asking yourself the same question, again and again and again: This is your life. How much of it do you want to spend on your phone?

Compassion, in contrast, means that I identify with the afflicted individual so fully that I feed him for the same reason I feed myself: because we are both hungry. In other words, I have paid him attention.

There was joy in concentration, and the world afforded an inexhaustible wealth of projects to concentrate on. There was joy in effort, and the world resisted effort to just the right degree, and yielded to it at last. People cut Mount Rushmore into faces; they chipped here and there for years. People slowed the spread of yellow fever; they sprayed

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The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction . Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity.

The key is that each stimulus only lasts a few seconds, and must be repeated.

Our attention is sacred. It’s an act of worship in itself. An act of spiritual, mental, and emotional formation. When you give something your attention – a movie, a conversation, a project at work – you’re declaring it the most important thing in your life. It may sound dramatic, but at its core, it’s true. When you pay attention to something, you’... See more

And yet: as much as the Fediverse is different (the governing structures, the incentives, the moderation, the absence of ads and engagement tricks), so much of it is also unsettlingly familiar—the same small boxes, the same few buttons, the same mechanics of following and being followed. The same babbling, tumbling, rushing stream of thoughts. I ca... See more

Being with somebody for an hour is much easier than paying attention to somebody for an hour. The former requires only physical (or virtual) proximity, and we do it every day. The latter happens only rarely. It requires us to donate all our emotional, spiritual, and intellectual energy to being with another person. I can recall only a few occasions... See more