The introduction to Mathew Crawford’s book The World Beyond Your Head can hardly be categorized as optimistic. When exploring the nature of human attention and how it is being exploited now, he is sometimes sarcastic, sometimes very critical and cynical, but mostly pragmatic. Nevertheless, he is always right. And the not-so-bright perspective that awaits us in the nearest and distant future might be much worse than we expect it to be.
The topics of social media, the Internet, global advertising, and constant distraction are very well known and close to each of us. Nowadays, the world seems to be as global as it has ever been, with the latest results of technological development and research being used in advertising. This why our money together with our attention are attracted to large corporations running the show and “expanding our opportunities.” The thing, however, is that while in the age of billboards and printed advertisements a person could somehow refuse to dedicate her attention to the ads and simply not to look at them, now the game has totally changed, and, at some point, it is totally impossible for a person not to consume what is fed by video and audio media all around. I totally agree to Crawford at this point, because I too cannot just stop my attention from being turned by TVs and other audio-video ads. Even if I'm reading a book, my brain listens to what the messages sent via the audial channel and I eventually get distracted after some time. At this point, I simply cannot refuse from consuming the "opportunities" offered to me. Indeed, conscious self does not have as much control over one’s attention as we would like it to have. Throughout millions of years, humans were hardwired to get distracted by fast changing and moving objects because our survival depended on it. The same story is with the speech recognition which we can hardly refuse from because this was essential to our social interactions. In this light, Crawford’s claim that we “find ourselves headed toward a similar condition with regard to the resource of attention, because we do not yet understand it to be a resource” (Crawford, 12) explains the situation we’re in perfectly and sounds very powerful to me. Given that we have very limited amount of this resource, it is unfair, in my opinion, that we are getting forcefully deprived of it. This is why developing ethics of attention might be necessary.
However, attention is not the only thing in humans that is being manipulated by others. The messages communicated by the ads which attempt to instill consumerist spirit in each of us is by far the problem of even greater importance. The scariest point in all these messages is that they work regardless our desire to follow them, and, moreover, that when accepted by an individual, these motivations are regarded as his own. We can to some point develop immunity to their influence, however, it will never be absolute. Even if a person will not run to the store immediately after hearing the ad, when the time comes and she will consciously decide to purchase what was advertised, her choice will be affected. The thing is that our existence is directed by the subliminal consciousness to which our consciousness has no access. And this is the place where our desires are attacked by media.
The concluding point of this discussion is not apocalyptic: that we are doomed or that our consciousness will be completely taken over by corporations. It is that we should be aware of our nature and of what influences us. And the only way to live in this world is to learn to control or redirect own attention and use reason in making decisions.
References
Crawford, Matthew B. The World Beyond Your Head. Print.
