#attention-economy

#attention-economy

It's almost impossible to consider what it was before it established a stranglehold on us, but there was a time when the internet seemed destined to be a beacon for technology's positive potential. Before we truly understood the dangers posed online, there was the optimistic belief that it would connect humanity for the better, democratize knowledge and information, and confront us with perspectives that we might otherwise have never encountered.

AI is fantastic! The possibilities are limitless! A true revolution! And its biggest achievement might be to push digital back to being an addition to our lives, instead of the very centre of them. Wait, what?! No! YES, but don't panic. Ads have always been there and always will be. This is not a declaration of the end of anything.

The attention economy stokes conflict, turning social media platforms into merchants of hate. One part of this dynamic concerns upsetting stories that get to the top of the feed. But why does attention run to the latest sensational murder rather than some good-news story? Social media algorithms are designed to give the most visibility to disturbing stories. 1 However, the algorithms work as they do because of the way that the attention systems of our brains evolved.

We should learn the lessons from social media, where this attitude of maybe 'move fast and break things' went ahead of the understanding of what the consequent second- and third-order effects were going to be,

Picture this: You wake up tomorrow and your phone is gone. Not broken, not lost - completely unnecessary. Your smart glasses show contextual information floating over the real world. Your smartwatch handles all interactions with a simple tap or voice command. Cameras everywhere recognise what you're looking at and instantly provide relevant data. This isn't science fiction - it's the inevitable next step.

Take, for example, advice that will supposedly change your brain chemistry, courtesy of someone who is definitely not a neuroscientist. Or my nutrition rules, from a dewy, gen Alpha sylph who doesn't realise what they actually have is a teenager's metabolism. Or 45 things you need to understand about a place from someone who has spent 45 minutes there. Endless lists of the bleeding obvious: eat intuitively, embrace nature, exercise compassion, remain curious, be childlike, contact friends, put down your phone,

The hardest part about marketing today is that competition for attention grows by the millisecond. Brands aren't just competing with each other but with millions of entertaining and talented TikTok creators, YouTube stars and Instagram influencers for the same finite audience. And if earning attention seems tough now, it's only going to get tougher from here. As global internet access expands, the amount of content, creators and conversations will continue to surge.

People in their twenties in the U.S. spend nearly seven hours consuming audiovisual entertainment daily, including time on social media, streaming series and movies, video games, YouTube, and music.

In a world where AI is increasingly turning up the noise and drowning out the signal, businesses and their leaders are finding that authentic attention is crucial.