Life is what you fill your attention with - The WAR for attention and the role of digital technology in the work of Bernard Stiegler

Abstract

This contribution focuses on the topic of attention and sets forth the main points of Bernard Stiegler's analysis of the interplay between capitalist consumer society, the destruction of attention and the consequences for individual and collective life. We look at how current digital technologies in service of the needs of the market are a major factor in the destruction of attention and discuss two counterforces that do not destroy but form attention: education and meditation. If life is what you fll your attention with, then focusing or directing attention is one of the most valuable abilities for knowing how to live. Instead of letting our attention be hijacked by the market and the economic needs of neoliberal capitalism, being in charge of what happens to our attention may be a basic right that needs protection given the current conditions of the attention economy.