Awareness infrastructure converts real crises into felt distance

Evidence

But among the catastrophes of our present moment is that the very means by which these disasters are brought to our awareness—twenty-four-hour news, the ping of cascading notifications, the endless scroll—act not as a bridge into the world, but as the actual mechanisms of further isolation and distance. The more urgent our collective problems become, the less real they seem to be. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 51

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the reader’s existing material on information overload undermining independent thought, and on communication media shaping community.
• SEED: Angle: ‘awareness machines that dilute the real’ — reverse-galloping idea that more contact with catastrophe manufactures disconnection.