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
We experience the externalities of the attention economy in little drips, so we tend to describe them with words of mild bemusement like “annoying” or “distracting.” But this is a grave misreading of their nature. In the short term, distractions can keep us from doing the things we want to do. In the longer term, however, they can accumulate and... See more
To optimize for viral growth, today’s social platforms are designed to feature entertainers and sensationalized content in a one-to-many fashion to generate more ad impressions... this is inducing divisiveness and reducing human interaction to just tapping on a like button.