Attention Economy
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
sari and
Attention Economy
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.
It is the business model of the internet, driven by ad revenue, that pushes companies to design their digital tools for compulsive engagement. This is, I think, true enough. The business model has certainly exacerbated the problem. But I’m far less sanguine than Hari appears to be about whether changing the business model will adequately address... See more
theconvivialsociety.substack.com • Attending to the World
I want to be realistic about how the mind works today, which is on multiple streams. And this situation isn’t going to change. We can set up full attention as an ideal, but our digital devices are producing a different way of attending.
Dirt • Dirt: Disordered Attention
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.
Dan Kurani • A Kinder Internet
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.
Dr. Julie Gurnertwitter.com