This philosophical essay on what attention really is — that is, cognitive attention — is worth a rea

This philosophical essay on what attention really is — that is, cognitive attention — is worth a read. Everyone talks about the way the internet is undermining attention but he contends we need a clearer concept of attention first before we can really evaluate that claim.

The essay is by a writer I'm new to, Justin E. H. Smith (a name I always read first as "Justine"), and I think what he settles on is this idea that attention is a moral investment. Well I know he says that, but here's what I think he means: That when someone intends to something or someone, they open themselves to being changed by it. Even with an object, attention is a dialogue. It's one thing to get in the water and and another to attend to it.

The internet does not yet really help us attend to it and grow. I mean I know y'all got your CALM app, but...

I had this thought: early TV was garbage. People called it the idiot box and the boob tube. Now it's much better. The TV apparatus had to learn how to make things that could have real meaning, but perhaps it's also worth saying that viewers also had to learn how to actually attend to to TV, how to be open to fare that could change them.