Lifescale

Chapter 2Awaken

The Gift of Awareness Is a Gift We First Give Ourselves, then Everyone Else

“Raise your awareness and share your uniqueness to the world.”

– Amit Ray

Digital distraction is not something we were prepared for. Generations of education, parenting, management, and absorbing everyday ethics and norms couldn't have prepared us for the onslaught of information, showers of attention, celebration of self-interest and selfishness, and the flooding of egocentric emotions.

We didn't mean to become addicted. As with cigarettes in the early days, we didn't understand that our digital indulgences were made to be addictive, and we didn't have information about the health effects—on our bodies, emotions, and psyches.

The Path to Distraction: How Did We Get Here?

I'm sure you have sometimes caught yourself in the mindless pattern of an “endless scroll,” where you, without even thinking, scrolled and scrolled and scrolled, viewing and reacting to content, not because you wanted to, but because you couldn't help yourself. There's a reason for that.

Our attention is traded as a commodity and the more of it we spend on any given platform or device, the more these hosts can sell it for.

As a geek apologist who championed Web 2.0, social media, and mobile apps, I was a hopeless optimist. Through my work I advised organizations, governments, institutions, and individuals on ways ...