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.
Ads have ruined company priorities
It used to be that we design for the best possible experience. But then “free” came around. Nothing is really free, however – you may not pay for it but you do with your data to improve ad targeting.
As a result, the incentives for the creators of these products is not to create a better experience for you. It’s to... See more
It used to be that we design for the best possible experience. But then “free” came around. Nothing is really free, however – you may not pay for it but you do with your data to improve ad targeting.
As a result, the incentives for the creators of these products is not to create a better experience for you. It’s to... See more
Golden Krishna • Notes on The Best Interface is No Interface
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.