An attention economy requires reducing diverse attention to one quantifiable substance.
Evidence
We are very close here to the core of the reactor that powers the attention economy – in that it is (sadly still) an ‘economy’, oriented towards financial profit, and not an ‘ecology’, understood as an ecosystem which we must urgently take care of if we wish to develop forms of life that are collectively sustainable and individually desirable. As we noted with Georg Franck in the preceding chapter, it is only possible to speak of an attention economy to the extent that the infinite diversity of what we pay attention to can be reduced to a quantifiable homogenous substance. It is precisely this reduction that is carried out by PageRank. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 228
Categorization
- DEFINE: Clarifies the precondition for any attention economy: homogeneity of attention as a measurable substance.
- XREF: Builds directly on the Georg Franck chapter on the attention economy already read. — connects to: The attention economy treats attention as uniform when its quality is secretly variable — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the…, 345; Attention can be quantitatively measured and thereby bought and sold. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 121; Attention commodification reduces human beings and relationships to quantifiable, saleable things. (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- The attention economy treats attention as uniform when its quality is secretly variable
#corroborates(0.92) — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 345 - Attention cannot function as currency without homogenizing measurement
#corroborates(0.90) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 163 - Attention can be quantitatively measured and thereby bought and sold.
#expands(0.85) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 121 - The economic paradigm distorts our understanding of how attention actually functions
#expands(0.82) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 75 - Attention commodification reduces human beings and relationships to quantifiable, saleable things.
#expands(0.78) - The attention economy rests on a hidden false premise about attention.
#expands(0.75) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 164