Your Mind Is Being Fracked
16,502
Published 2024-05-31
D. Graham Burnett calls the attention economy an example of “human fracking”: With our attention in shorter and shorter supply, companies are going to even greater lengths to extract this precious resource from us. And he argues that it’s now reached a point that calls for a kind of revolution. “This is creating conditions that are at odds with human flourishing. We know this,” he tells me. “And we need to mount new forms of resistance.”
Burnett is a professor of the history of science at Princeton University and is working on a book about the laboratory study of attention. He’s also a co-founder of the Strother School of Radical Attention (www.schoolofattention.org/) , which is a kind of grass roots, artistic effort to create a curriculum for studying attention.
In this conversation, we talk about how the 20th-century study of attention laid the groundwork for today’s attention economy, the connection between changing ideas of attention and changing ideas of the self, how we even define attention (this episode is worth listening to for Burnett’s collection of beautiful metaphors alone), whether the concern over our shrinking attention spans is simply a moral panic, what it means to teach attention and more.
Mentioned:
Friends of Attention (www.friendsofattention.net/)
“The Battle for Attention (www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/05/06/the-battle-f…) ” by Nathan Heller
“Powerful Forces Are Fracking Our Attention. We Can Fight Back. (www.nytimes.com/2023/11/24/opinion/attention-econo…) ” by D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh and Peter Schmidt
Scenes of Attention (cup.columbia.edu/book/scenes-of-attention/97802312…) edited by D. Graham Burnett and Justin E. H. Smith
Book Recommendations:
Addiction by Design (press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691160887/…) by Natasha Dow Schüll
Objectivity (press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781890951795/…) by Lorraine Daston and Peter L. Galison
The Confidence-Man (www.gutenberg.org/files/21816/21816-h/21816-h.htm) by Herman Melville
Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].
You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Rollin Hu and Kristin Lin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, with Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our senior editor is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Annie Galvin and Elias Isquith. Original music by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero.
All Comments (21)
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I deeply appreciate that Prof Burnett mentioned the value of the arts. I'm a scientist, but I cannot advocate enough for the value of art (though non-monetary), both inside and outside of science.
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❤❤❤ what a meditative experience, this podcast.
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I think about my generation being the last that didn't have screens growing up. The ASSymetrical programming is now universal. Love Strother School.
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Thanks for your thoughtful, informative conversation guys.
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What is that piece of music?
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what is exactly the book referenced very early on and what's the author - "History of science" ???
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Did anyone misread the title? I thought it said our attention is being f'ed, that's why I clicked
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13:00 The way we think of and treat ADHD(ppl) is the same story. These 'Misfits' break our idea(!) of attention. I mean in the end you're proud of being able to do boring stuff over a long period of time.............................................................................................................................
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Attention requires strong interest that stirs up Enjoyable Learning Knowledge and provides guidance and direction along with spiritual rehabilitation and development daily. -Hebrews 4:12 Attention can not become boring to tears devoid of why that sort kind stuff is being taught without understanding. Doing boring stuff without understanding is harmful to the process of enjoyable learning in ways that makes students want to drop out of school in droves especially for boys and Men.
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💜💜💜
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Please credit the artist from the piece of music in the listening exercise. It's driving me and some other folks here and on Reddit kinda crazy.
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👍👍🙏
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7:39 pursuit tests
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#53 ❤😂🎉😊
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READ Aldous Huxley's Island..."Attention" is the Refrain
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If I had a brain =/
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I've done my best, but I really don't speak academic like this.
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🙂
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Important content but sentences should end in periods most of the time, not question marks. The acute inflections here that round sentences like a question, the “uptalk” or the “high rising terminal” (HRT) habit ruined this episode for us here. In our home we enjoy this show but we don't want to be talked to like children.
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when kids looked at their phones in class they cannot learn shit. blame the parents not the teachers.
