Attentional experiences rest on an exploited global material labor chain

Evidence

In concluding this book, we must, therefore, insist on the need to take ‘attention ecology’ literally, in its most material sense – in the context of an ontology where, as in Spinoza’s, ‘bodies’ and ‘minds’ are just two ways of envisaging one same reality. Being attentive to the second material ground (of the paper and liquid crystals), behind the visual ground of the images that we are presented with, requires that we be actively attentive to the concrete relational fabric which assures the consistency of the figures and functions that we project onto the different parts of our environment. … From the African migrant who sifts our recycled paper to the Chinese worker who assembles our smartphones, this system produces the pleasure and the leisure of some at the expense of the work and exploitation of others. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 559

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Attention ecology’ is defined here in its most literal, material sense — distinct from the metaphorical ‘pool of attention’ reading.
• XREF: Connects to Frankfurt School’s material-base critique and to the ‘cultural extractivism’ framing common in platform-studies scholarship. — connects to: The attention economy functions as an industrial farm of vegetative users — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 83; Attention works as a needle weaving global links at the price of inequality — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 560; Attention is becoming the hegemonic resource restructuring material production — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 47 (+1 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: Reframes attention as simultaneously cognitive and material — a Spinozan monism where pleasure/leisure for some is built on attentional exhaustion of others; dense enough to re-read.

Broader Connections

• The attention economy functions as an industrial farm of vegetative users #expands (0.82) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 83
• Attention works as a needle weaving global links at the price of inequality #corroborates (0.78) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 560
• Attention is becoming the hegemonic resource restructuring material production #expands (0.75) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 47