{"id":6585,"date":"2015-03-17T18:13:43","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T23:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=6585"},"modified":"2015-03-17T18:13:43","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T23:13:43","slug":"fierce-assaults-on-the-attentional-commons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=6585","title":{"rendered":"Fierce Assaults on the \u201cAttentional Commons\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bollier.org\/blog\/fierce-assaults-\u201cattentional-commons\u201d\" target=\"_blank\">Fierce Assaults on the \u201cAttentional Commons\u201d<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>People in tech circles often talk about the \u201cattention economy\u201d with knowing nonchalance.\u00a0 Instead of\u00a0<em>things<\/em>\u00a0being scarce, they note, the real shortage these days is<em>people\u2019s attention<\/em>.\u00a0 Hence the ferocious drive to capture people\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n<p>This analysis is true as far as it goes.\u00a0 What it fails to address is that the \u201cattention economy\u201d is not really an \u201ceconomy.\u201d\u00a0 It is a predatory invasion of our consciousness. Sellers are using every possible technique to colonize our minds and emotions at the most elemental levels in a relentless attempt to prod us to buy, buy, buy.<\/p>\n<p>Author Matthew B. Crawford made an eloquent case for the \u201cattentional commons\u201d in an opinion piece,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/03\/08\/opinion\/sunday\/the-cost-of-paying-attention.html?_r=0\">&#8220;The Cost of Paying Attention,&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0in Sunday\u2019s\u00a0<em>New York Times\u00a0<\/em>(March 8).\u00a0 \u201cWhat if we saw attention in the same way that we saw air or water, as a valuable resource that we hold in common?&#8221; he asks.\u00a0 &#8220;Perhaps, if we could envision an \u2018attentional commons,\u2019 then we could figure out how to protect it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Crawford recounts a series of all-to-familiar intrusions upon our attention:\u00a0 ads on the little screen used to swipe credit cards at the grocery store\u2026. ads for lipstick on the trays at airport security screening lines\u2026. \u201cendlessly recurring message from the Lincoln Financial Group\u201d along the moving handrail on an airport escalator\u2026.the ubiquitous chatter of CNN and TV ads in the airport lounge.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fierce Assaults on the \u201cAttentional Commons\u201d People in tech circles often talk about the \u201cattention economy\u201d with knowing nonchalance.\u00a0 Instead of\u00a0things\u00a0being scarce, they note, the real shortage these days ispeople\u2019s attention.\u00a0 Hence the ferocious drive to capture people\u2019s attention. This analysis is true as far as it goes.\u00a0 What it fails to address is that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4237,4236,4235,4234,2081,655,786],"class_list":["post-6585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-ads","tag-advertisements","tag-attention","tag-attentional-commons","tag-marketing","tag-propaganda","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6585"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6586,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6585\/revisions\/6586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}