The Urgent Need for Attention Sanctuaries

The commodification of our attention in digital realms has been the focus of news reports, academic research, and even the hit Netflix series “Adolescence.” Researchers and activists are increasingly calling for spaces where we can escape the daily deluge of screen-based content.

Published April 11, 2025

By Brooke Elliott
Education Communications Intern

More than nine states have implemented rules about cell phone use in schools, and with good reason. Smartphones and digital platforms have become ubiquitous in our daily lives over the past several years. However, we are now beginning to observe some of the unforeseen effects this digital technology has on our wellbeing, particularly for young people.

As digital platforms continue to dominate our lives, the exploitation of human attention is changing how we engage with the world around us. With increased device usage correlating with mental health issues, there’s a growing movement that seeks to address and mitigate these challenges.

“Attention Sanctuaries: Social Practice Guidelines and Emergent Strategies in Attention Activism,” by D. Graham Burnett of Princeton University and Eve Mitchell of the Strother School of Radical Attention was published last month in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. The article explores the concept of “attention activism,” a force promising to save human attention from the impact of what some are calling “human fracking” and reclaim spaces for human flourishing.

What is Human Fracking?

“Human fracking” refers to deep exploitation of human attention by digital platforms such as social media, video streaming services, and other screen-based environments. Like the process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which extracts valuable resources from the earth often at the cost of long-term environmental damage, human fracking involves the extraction of individuals’ mental and emotional resources, ultimately harming users, depleting their cognitive and emotional well-being while enriching corporations that profit from this exploitation.

The Emergence of Attention Activism

The concept of “attention activism” has gained traction as a movement against the misuse of human attention. It is driven by a coalition of researchers, advocates, and organizations dedicated to raising awareness about the societal and psychological consequences of the attention economy. Rather than framing these issues as problems of individual self-management, attention activism shifts the focus to empowered collective action. The goal is to build solidarity and organize resistance to the forces that seek to capture and monetize human attention.

“By explicitly and collaboratively engaging in conversation about attentional practices and commitments, and by achieving and promulgating shared norms for shared time and copresence, we can radically reshape what happens when we gather – and in doing so meaningfully mitigate some of the most prominent problems associated with the pervasively disruptive use of networked devices,” the authors write.

Attention Sanctuaries: Protecting Spaces for Flourishing

One of the central concepts emerging from attention activism is the idea of the “attention sanctuary”: a space that promotes the protection and cultivation of human attention, free from the disruptive effects of the attention economy. Examples of attention sanctuaries include libraries, churches, museums, and classrooms—places where individuals can focus, reflect, and engage in meaningful activities without the constant pull of digital distractions. As the authors write, “A true attention sanctuary cannot be imposed, it has to be created and maintained.”

The work of attention activists is to preserve and protect these sanctuaries, ensuring that they remain safe spaces where human attention can thrive. As society faces the disruptive effects of surveillance capitalism, data harvesting, and addictive screen-based environments, the importance of such sanctuaries has never been clearer.

Building a Culture of Collective Action

Attention activism is not just about resisting individual harm, it is also about creating a cultural shift toward collective responsibility. By reframing the problems of the attention economy, activists emphasize the importance of solidarity over individual self-regulation. This shift could result in actionable interventions that influence norms in social spaces such as schools, homes, and workplaces.

Ultimately, attention activism is about more than just digital detox. It is about fostering environments where human flourishing can take place. By promoting the creation and cultivation of attention sanctuaries, attention activists are laying the groundwork for a future where human well-being is prioritized over profit, and where collective action can lead to meaningful societal change.

“While, broadly speaking, we support the targeted and responsible application of such policies (together with digital detox rubrics for youth and adults alike), we believe that the participatory process of actively creating attention sanctuary guidelines presents a valuable component of any comprehensive strategy for addressing the public health dimensions of societal-scale digital platforms,” the authors write in their conclusion. “Such an approach is constructive, rather than privative, and promotes reflection, education, and solidarity. These are the central virtues of an attention-activist approach to the challenges of our rapidly shifting media ecosystem”

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