Deep disciplined attention resists appropriation better than shallow attention does

Evidence

Lastly, there is attention itself, which this approach also takes for granted. It assumes not only that our attention will always be captured, but that our attention remains the same throughout. I described in the previous chapter how the attention economy targets our attention as if it were an undifferentiated and interchangeable currency; the “ethical persuasion” approach is no exception. When we think about the different kinds of attention we are actually capable of—the pinnacle being the kind that William James describes, if we only have the discipline—it becomes clear that most forms of persuasive design (whether nefarious or “empowering”) assume a rather shallow form of attention. We might extrapolate from this to conclude that deeper, hardier, more nuanced forms of attention are less susceptible to appropriation, because discipline and vigilance inhere within them. — Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing, 415

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The core of Odell’s defense against the ‘she’s just quitting social media’ misreading (and against Vivrekar): attention is not a flat currency but a spectrum of depths, and deeper forms are structurally less exploitable. The full argument depends on all the premises before it.
• XREF: Builds the reader’s stated task of defending against the withdrawal misreading — attention depth as the mechanism that makes discipline a real counter-move rather than naive optimism. — connects to: The desire to know is ultimately a relation of appropriation — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1354; Rooted attention should be trusted more than managerial attention in conflicts — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 317; Attention ecology rejects a coercive de-alienation of distracted audiences. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 481 (+2 more)