Using Distributed Techology to Make Music in the Time of the Attention Economy

Sounds Aware is a mobile web app that allows users to record soundwalks and share them so that other people can experience them. The creator of the soundwalk records their perceptions of the restorativeness of a specific place on the walk, these answers are then sonified for whoever experiences the walk later to hear. Sounds Aware aims to be a social app that is restorative to our attention. It does this by encouraging experience of nature and by using decentralized technology that exists outside of the attention economy. The attention economy is discussed as a force that exists within much of our current technology. The economic incentives setup by the attention economy are having negative effects on our attention. Attention Restoration Theory is discussed as a possible solution to this problem that finds that nature is restorative to our attention. Sounds Aware is an app that addresses both the nature based solution and the technical solution to the problem of the attention economy