What could be possible if we took control of our attention?

"There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening." - Marshall McLuhan

Hello subscribers! I’m relaunching Community Returns after a few years of dormancy. Since I started this Substack in 2021, a lot has happened. Right now seems like the perfect time to share ideas about how to strengthen each of our communities through our own individual power and influence.

That’s what this revived version of Community Returns will focus on—how each of us can sharpen our attention and take action to improve the places where we live and work. To kick off, I’ve called on the wisdom of Marshall McLuhan to encourage reflection about what might be possible if we assumed control over our attention. The origin of Community Returns was a focus on improving our ability to notice the world around us, so it seems only appropriate.

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In 1967, Marshall McLuhan illuminated the power of media to shape and restrict our imaginations, often in service of consumption. Today, media shapes polarizing ideas of life in America and, in many ways, reduces people to consumers in service to platforms and shareholders. The more we recognize what is happening, the more power we have to resist it.

Cultivating our attention

In an era where media saturates every corner of our lives, Marshall McLuhan’s insight that “the medium is the message” remains strikingly relevant. McLuhan argued that each form of communication influences society more deeply than its content. Under capitalism, this reality has profound implications. Media technologies not only transmit information but also reinforce structures that serve the interests of capitalists, often transforming audiences into passive consumers rather than engaged participants.

It’s not just the information shared through media that shapes us, but the purpose of that information. Most often, the purpose is not to engage deeply with others or improve our understanding of the world but instead to encourage you to buy or click something, which is encouraged through fear, agitation, and shame. To resist, we must cultivate our attention and develop an awareness of the media’s purpose and how each form impacts us.

Commodifying attention

The infrastructure of today’s media is designed to commodify our attention. Traditional broadcast models like television, with their one-to-many communication style, align seamlessly with mass consumer culture. As McLuhan described, the medium fosters passivity, positioning audiences as mere recipients of messages that often support consumerist agendas.

Social media takes this dynamic even further, blurring the lines between content, entertainment, and advertising. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok optimize for engagement—often through agitation and superficial interaction—shaping not just our thoughts but also our patterns of attention and mental states.

As Ezra Klein observed in this New York Times OpEd, we frequently focus on what media express rather than how they express it, but the medium shapes not only the message but also what messages are possible. Character count restrictions, text-based communication, feeds, threads, and other formats all restrain what can be communicated, and through these constraints, entertainment is prioritized. As a result, the dominance of entertaining, bite-size formats and the growing expectation that everything should be entertaining have contributed to the rise of celebrity politicians, where spectacle often overshadows substance.

Media, with its built-in constraints, such as character limits or algorithms favoring controversy, alters our mental states. Observe how you feel after engaging with different media: Are you angry, entertained, or enriched? Media act as environments, subtly altering our perceptions and ultimately shaping who we become. When media change our environments, they change us, often in ways we don’t notice.

How to Resist

To resist, we can develop media literacy and intentionality. As Jenny Odell argues in How to Do Nothing, resistance involves reclaiming our attention and creating spaces for genuine engagement. Similarly, Nathan Schneider, a media studies scholar at the University of Colorado, advocates for building alternative infrastructures that defy commodification. Instead of merely seeking alternative content, we should explore alternative forms of communication that foster meaningful, less transactional interactions.

I’ve found myself seeking in-person interactions, opting for coffee instead of asynchronous communication through email and Slack. I’m reading more books and long-form, well-considered journalism. Instead of poking in on social media, I get most of my news through newsletters, where I have the agency to decide whether or not I want to open the message or simply delete it. And, I’ve tried to find more space for no media, to rest my mind and nervous system.

We can challenge the commodification of our attention by intentionally choosing media that contribute positively to our mental and emotional states. Critical questions can guide us: How do I feel after using this medium? Am I more informed, more thoughtful, or simply more anxious and agitated? Media literacy is not only about analyzing messages but also about recognizing how media shapes our perceptions of reality. Right now, it feels as if the media and the message are meant to sabotage our ability to act. But if we can control how we receive and metabolize information, our agency can be reclaimed.

The most radical solution is to forgo our screens and isolation and instead engage with the people in the places we’re in. Through this, community can be built, and real resistance can begin.