Peter Schmidt
Co-founder of the Strother School of Radical Attention and co-author of Attensity, focused on attention activism and movement-building to protect attention as a common good.
Top 3 podcasts with Peter Schmidt
Ranked by the Snipd community
35 snips
Feb 9, 2026 • 49min
The Trillion Dollar Battle For Your Attention, with Peter Schmidt and D. Graham Burnett
Peter Schmidt, co-founder of the Strother School of Radical Attention and attention activist, and D. Graham Burnett, Princeton historian of science, discuss the trillion-dollar fight over human focus. They explore attention as a common good, trace its philosophical history, warn against 'human fracking' of attention, and outline collective politics, sanctuaries, and low-barrier activism to reclaim shared mental space.
28 snips
Jan 22, 2026 • 42min
How big tech companies steal your attention
Peter Schmidt, attention activist and co-editor of Attensity!, and Graham Burnett, scholar and co-editor and co-founder of Friends of Attention, discuss attention as a systemic crisis. They explore the $14 trillion incentive driving tech to commodify attention. They explain the human fracking metaphor, the history of attention science, and practical attention-activist tactics for culture and institutions.
Jan 20, 2026 • 1h 8min
The Friends of Attention, "Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement" (Crown, 2026)
D. Graham Burnett, a historian at Princeton, Alyssa Loh, a filmmaker and attention activist, and Peter Schmidt, director of the Strother School, dive into the urgent concept of 'human fracking,' where attention is commodified like a resource. They discuss how the Friends of Attention collective arose to reclaim our humanity from corporate exploitation. The trio explores redefining attention as a caring practice and emphasizes the need for sanctuaries and collective action to protect our focus from being mined by tech platforms.
