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
what if the apps you used helped you keep control over your attention and more intentionally use your time. how many times have we opened twitter/instagram/etc with an intention only to forget about it 15mins later, still sucked down the rabbit hole? sublime is an idea baby, but if we succeed, it's because we helped you live more intentionally.
How we allocate our attention defines us even more than our purchases do. People have different amounts of money, so the things we buy don’t reflect values in the same way for everyone. The same purchase might represent a tremendous sacrifice for one person and a mere afterthought to another. But we all have the same widow’s mite of attention to distribute among the many things competing for it: family, friends, education, health, careers, church, politics, great books, lousy books, clickbait headlines, and viral posts about ridiculous people doing ridiculous things for no particular reason. Our limited attention budget forces us to make choices, and those choices both reveal our values and create our characters.
Being fine with periods of solitude, working alone, pushing things forward without others cheering you on...that's a superpower.
The ability to run your own race, despite what the world is doing, initially looks behind - but puts you out front.
What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.