Has this ever happened to you? I pick up my phone to check the weather forecast and before I know it I am looking at tiny houses by a stream in the woods. Fifteen minutes later after traveling around the world in reel after reel, and I can’t remember why I even picked up my phone.
Those moments came back to me while reading Attensity!, a manifesto from the Friends of Attention. The book describes what our devices and platforms do to us as “human fracking”—drilling into our minds, extracting our focus, and turning it into profit.
It is a harsh image, but an accurate one. Our attention is being mined one notification, one scroll, one outrage at a time.
And attention is not a small thing. What we pay attention to becomes our life. It shapes what we love, what we fear, and what we fail to notice.
But the answer is not simply more willpower. The authors argue that we need attention sanctuaries: places where we gather without screens and remember how to be present. A church. A theater. A garden. A band rehearsal. A kitchen table.
Perhaps liberation begins there.
With a child showing us a stone they found.
With a neighbor telling a story.
Watching silently as a flock of geese crosses an evening sky at sunset and no one reaches for a camera.
Attention is more than concentration. It is a form of love.
And reclaiming it may be one of the most important acts of resistance left to us.
Start by paying attention to only what you want to pay attention to.
I’m Dan Kenney and this is my perspective.
