Atencion radical

In the era of wearable technology and uninterrupted connection to the internet, one of the most valuable commodities, and with which huge amounts of money are moved, is attention. Our attention: our continued propensity to spend time online and to respond to the stimuli that bombard us relentlessly: notifications, calls, announcements, news, updates, suggestions. In exchange for information and entertainment, we turn our attention to the network economy, and the market transforms it into a high-priced commodity. Out there is an army of web developers, software developers, social media strategists and advertisers who are shaping one of the world's fastest growing and most powerful industries. Now, at what price? In this essay, as personal as it is rigorous, as brief as it is incisive, Julia Bell poses the precise questions to decipher this reality in which we live, and thus attend to what we are ignoring in this disproportionate exchange. What do we lose when we give up our attention, and how can we get it back? Or put another way: how can we transform our attention span into a radical, transformative element, and not abandon ourselves to an infinite distraction at the service of the power and capital of technology companies?