exploring the inner workings and dynamics of companies building products engineered to hook us, addict us, and hijack our attention to sell more ad inventory
Gaining a following on social media is a measure of people’s attention. It is not a measure of benefit to others, nor knowledge, nor sincerity, nor wisdom, nor leadership capability - yet these are some of things that are needed to minimize the harm from having a following.
Gloria Mark, a professor of information science at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of “Attention Span,” started researching the way people used computers in 2004. The average time people spent on a single screen was 2.5 minutes. “I was astounded,” she told me. “That was so much worse than I’d thought it would be.” But that was... See more