Modern Penance: Reclaiming Our Attention in the Digital Age

Author

Jalanie T
April 13, 2025

Table of Contents

This year’s Holy Week feels a little different.

Some of us still do the Visita Iglesia. Others join the Pabasa or unplug for a day or two. For a lot of Filipinos, it’s a week for quiet, for fasting, for turning inward—even just for a little while.

But while we fast from meat, or from noise, or from everyday chaos, we rarely think of fasting from the one thing that’s been quietly shaping us more than anything else: the algorithm.

This week, while you’re lying in bed scrolling, reading reflections, watching story after story of everyone else doing their own version of Holy Week—ask yourself: What am I feeding? What’s feeding me?

Because maybe repentance in 2025 doesn’t always look like kneeling or crying in church.

Maybe it looks like waking up from the digital trance.

Maybe it looks like reclaiming your attention before someone else profits from it.

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CHAPTER 1: The Algorithm and You (A System Built on Prediction)

We think we’re in control. But we forget: everything we do online is being measured, watched, and fed back to us in a way that makes us easier to predict. And more predictable means more profitable.

It’s not just about what you like. It’s:

• How long you linger on a photo

• What kind of comments you read

• What time you usually check your phone

• What triggers you. What keeps you scrolling. What you ignore.

All of it goes into a model.

And then? The algorithm doesn’t give you the best content.

It gives you the content you’re most likely to react to.

Because more reaction means more engagement. More engagement means more ad space.

And every second you’re online, you’re not just watching—you’re being watched.

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CHAPTER 2: Surveillance Capitalism (The Monetization of You)

This isn’t just “tech stuff.” It’s economic.

Shoshana Zuboff called it Surveillance Capitalism—a system where your data becomes the raw material. Your behavior becomes the product. You become the thing being sold.

Let that sink in.

You’re not the user. You’re the commodity.

What does that mean?

It means your search history, your late-night questions, your Spotify habits, your TikTok scrolls—those are all mined, analyzed, and sold to advertisers and brokers. To companies who want to predict you, influence you, and profit from you without your consent.

And most of us… we just go along with it.

Because it’s not obvious. There’s no receipt. No pop-up warning.

Just more content. More noise. More scrolling.

And somewhere in the background, someone gets rich from your attention.

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CHAPTER 3: Existential Tension

(Share and risk being reduced. Stay silent and risk being erased.)

You’ve probably felt this.

You want to be seen. To share your story. To speak up.

But the moment you post something real—grief, anger, hope, confusion—it gets flattened. Turned into content.

Something to be liked. Scrolled past. Categorized.

The algorithm doesn’t know the difference between your heartbreak and a meme.

It just sees engagement.

It doesn’t care about your story. It cares if you’ll go viral.

That’s what I mean by being reduced.

But if you don’t post at all? You become invisible. Forgettable. Erased from the feed.

And in 2025, not existing online sometimes feels like not existing at all.

So you’re caught.

Post and be reduced. Stay silent and be erased.

And that’s the existential crisis most people are quietly living with. They feel it. But they don’t have the words for it.

Until now.

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CHAPTER 4: The Attention Economy (A Battle for Your Mind)

You’ve heard it before: attention is the new currency.

But if we’re being honest—attention is also your power.

And they want as much of it as they can get.

Every major platform is built around one goal:

How do we keep you hooked just a little longer?

Because if they can control your attention, they can:

• Influence your mood

• Push certain worldviews

• Sell you more things

• Make you addicted to the feed

• Keep you from thinking for yourself

That’s not an accident. That’s design.

You ever notice how hard it is to focus now?

How quickly you switch tabs? How you pick up your phone without realizing it?

That’s not weakness.

That’s what happens when a system is built to exploit your psychology.

You’re not distracted because you’re lazy.

You’re distracted because you’ve been trained to be.

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CHAPTER 5: Self vs. System (Reclaiming Your Power)

Let’s get honest here.

You might be thinking, So what now? Am I supposed to delete all my apps? Go off-grid? Buy a dumb phone?

No. I’m not saying disconnect from the internet.

I’m saying wake up.

Because once you see the system, you can’t unsee it.

And once you’re aware, you’re no longer predictable. You’re not a puppet. You get to choose.

You can:

• Stop doomscrolling just because you’re sad or bored

• Use social media to express, not to impress

• Set boundaries with your feed (clean it up, mute, unfollow)

• Take a digital fast this Holy Week—not just from food, but from being fed

• Give your attention to what actually matters: people, projects, purpose

We can’t stop the algorithm. But we can stop feeding it blindly.

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Final Words

The Philippines has been called the Social Media Capital of the World.

We wear it like a badge of pride.

But maybe it’s time to ask:

Are we leading the world… or are we being used by it?

We can’t afford to stay naïve.

Not when our minds, moods, and time are being harvested in real-time.

So if you’re reflecting this Holy Week, don’t just look up—look within.

Your attention is sacred. Guard it.

Your story is sacred. Don’t let it be flattened.

Your mind is not for sale. Take it back.

This doesn’t have to be about guilt.

This is just about remembering that you’ve got a choice.

Let’s wake up. Let’s reclaim our power.

Let’s start with focus.