About this episode
Ellie and David explore the complexities of attention and its relationship with consciousness, discussing its commodification in the digital age.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.com Are you paying attention when you scroll online? In episode 176 of Overthink, Ellie and David draw your attention to attention. They explain why attention is so hard to define and debate the extent to which it should be equated with consciousness. Is attention the same thing as consciousness? Or are there important differences between these concepts? They consider different ways that attention has been classified, from “overt vs. covert” to “effortful vs. effortless” to “voluntary vs. involuntary.” Ellie and David then discuss the commodification of attention and how it has been intensified by the digital era, or what Chris Hayes calls “the age of attention.” How has social media changed the way we attend to the world, to ourselves, and to others? Is our attention still our own? Or has it become alienated? In the Substack Bonus Segment, Ellie and David talk about Simone Weil’s and Iris Murdoch’s ethical approaches to attention. Works Discussed: Jelle Bruineberg, “Rethinking the cognitive foundations of the attention economy”Chris Hayes, The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most…
People in this episode
Hosts: Ellie, David
Topics covered
- attention
- consciousness
- digital era
- social media
- commodification of attention
- ethical approaches
Keywords
- attention
- consciousness
- social media
- digital era
- ethical approaches
- commodification
- philosophy
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource, The Principles of Psychology, Consciousness, Attention, and Conscious Attention, Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement
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