PhronesisWe propose a dynamical-systems account of chronic digital-content consumption as a wrong attractor in the space of cognitive-behavioral states. Defining the ground state S^0 as calibrated active engagement—the condition in which an agent generates, deliberates, and integrates information toward coherent output—we characterize the absorbing basin W of passive-input behavior: habitual, low-friction reception of algorithmically curated content that systematically forecloses creative and critical output.
We introduce a Content-Reception Architecture (CRA) describing the reinforcement geometry that stabilizes W, and we identify a Creative-Output Foreclosure Basin (COFB) as the region of state space from which spontaneous return to S^0 becomes exponentially improbable without deliberate perturbation. Nine propositions (P1–P9) develop the formal structure: from the entropic cost of passive input to the phase-transition conditions under which re-engagement becomes possible.
We conclude with practical and theoretical implications for epistemic hygiene, attention economics, and the design of recovery protocols that re-enable the return to S^0. The framework synthesizes results from attentional neuroscience, behavioral economics, and dynamical-systems theory, and is intended to supply rigorous vocabulary for a phenomenon that remains underspecified in the existing literature.