Contemplation access forms gated communities of attention divided by inequality

Evidence

In their own ways, both of these things suggest to me the frightening potential of something like gated communities of attention: privileged spaces where some (but not others) can enjoy the fruits of contemplation and the diversification of attention. One of the main points I’ve tried to make in this book—about how thought and dialogue rely on physical time and space—means that the politics of technology are stubbornly entangled with the politics of public space and of the environment. This knot will only come loose if we start thinking not only about the effects of the attention economy, but also about the ways in which these effects play out across other fields of inequality. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 665

Categorization

• DEFINE: ‘Gated communities of attention’ names her core diagnosis precisely — the book’s central redirection target.
• XREF: Ties her attention politics back to the reader’s public-space/parks thread and to the privilege critique the reader wants to press. — connects to: Status hierarchies are perceived unevenly and sharpen with community inculcation — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 885; Attention works as a needle weaving global links at the price of inequality — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 560; Attention functions as currency in prestige-differentiated social groups — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 13 (+1 more)