Attention extraction shapes even our intimate access to other people

Evidence

But how could it be otherwise? It makes perfect sense that we do not know how to live when our actual people (our friends, coworkers, lovers, even family) increasingly come to us as pop-up snapshots served between advertisements; when our access to the world is determined by our consumer preference categories; when extractive digital networks shape every aspect of daily life; when we do CAPTCHA tests to prove our humanity. We do not know how to live when we are continuously needled by our feeds into anguish and outrage in relation to distant events and lives over which we have no control. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 43

Categorization

• DEFINE: Pins down the diagnostic claim: the medium of connection (ads, preference categories, feeds) is itself what extracts and isolates.
• QUESTION: Is the CAPTCHA detail offered literally or as emblematic? Worth checking how far the book presses the literal claim.
• XREF: connects to: Algorithmic personalization erodes the shared public space that allows surprise — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1287