About Civic Attention

What We Do

Much of our modern digital world — especially today’s dominant social media platforms — is deliberately engineered to capture and exploit our attention. Algorithmic feeds bombard us with an endless stream of addictive content, keeping us scrolling for profit while reshaping our democracy in ways that fracture trust, distort truth, and paralyze our ability to solve problems together.

The costs are everywhere: it’s harder than ever to focus on the people and priorities that matter most. We are more isolated from each other, less able to agree on basic facts, and increasingly divided on issues that demand collective response. Anxiety, depression, and despair are rising — especially among young people — while common sense and consensus are steadily unraveling. And the dysfunction and chaos of the online world is increasingly bleeding into our offline lives as well.

Civic Attention is a non-profit organization dedicated to confronting this crisis head-on. Through research, analysis, and thought leadership, we work to name and expose exploitative attention systems, advance systemic redesign of the information economy alongside smarter tactics for online civic engagement, and champion a cultural renewal rooted in trust, belonging, and shared purpose. Our goal is simple but urgent: reclaim attention as the foundation of freedom, agency, and democracy.

As members of Gen Z, we feel these pressures firsthand. We combine our research with our lived perspectives, publishing insights both here on our website and through our Substack newsletter to chart a path toward a healthier, more humane digital future.