We exhibit a new computational-based definition of awareness,
informally that our level of unawareness of an object is the amount
of time needed to generate that object within a certain environment.
We give several examples to show this notion matches our intuition
in scenarios where one organizes, accesses and transfers
information. We also give a formal process-independent definition of
awareness based on Levin's universal enumeration.

We show the usefulness of computational awareness by showing how it
relates to decision making, and how others can manipulate our
decision making with appropriate advertising, in particular,
connections to sponsored search and brand awareness. Understanding
awareness can also help rate the effectiveness of various user
interfaces designed to access information.