the markets that drive the predominant way we use digital technology to allocate attention reflect the financial interests of investors and advertisers, which are often orthogonal or even antagonistic to individual and community interests.

Our limited attention is easily absorbed by the increasing amount of content tailored to piquing our curiosity and capturing our attention. Humans are inadequately adapted to the information environment we now live in.

the dominant companies that we use to access this information, such as Google, Facebook, and X/Twitter, generate most of their revenues by capturing and reselling our attention. That’s the essence of advertising, which is their business model. Advertisers literally buy our attention. Today, in order to grow, these companies invest in algorithms... See more