Attention Economy

The reason we’re so increasingly intolerant of long articles and why we skim them, why we skip forward even in a short video that reduces a 300-page book into a three-minute animation — even in that we skip forward — is that we’ve been infected with this kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but not do the work of... See more

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

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