The growing popularity of motion tracking on social media is a symptom of a widespread attention crisis

The growing popularity of motion tracking on social media is a symptom of a widespread attention crisis, says Frida Ghitis.

Ghitis: Motion tracking has long been used to stabilize moving images, but the contemporary version locks rigidly onto a single point, tracking each minute motion, is truly new and truly new.

Much of the content we consume on our phones is shot in the “wrong” aspect ratio.

Most cameras nowadays shoot images intended for widescreen TVs and computer screens.

We owe the free availability of such tools to the enormous investments being made in computer vision and the enormous business of video surveillance.

As we follow Hayes’ head, the screen mimics his microscopic nods and gestures, every single one made simultaneously meaningful and meaningless.

The effect only works well when there is one center of attention; in an interview, in dialogue, it's even more jarring.

Your sense of the space and the way a person communicates by moving within it is gone.