The Attention Economy Is Part Of The Greatest Wealth Transfer Ever

How About Creating An "Intention Economy"?

There you are, sitting in a coffee shop with a handful of friends. On the table in front of everyone is a cup of whatever convoluted combination of caffeine and sugar each of you prefers. You each periodically take a sip and put the cup onto the table to continue the conversation. Or do you?  

A more likely scenario is that the coffee cups aren’t the most important objects on the table at all. It’s the phones. All of them. Sitting there face up. Flashing at each notification. Some buzzing. Some bleeping out audible alerts (because we all have friends that either think it’s still 2012 or think they are 85 years old).  

It starts with one friend checking a message while the rest of you talk. Later in the conversation, maybe two or three friends are checking while the rest of you talk. And at some point – be honest, we’ve all experienced this – everyone at the table is staring at their phone. Which is to say, nobody is really at the table at all. They are all off in the ether of Instagram feeds, text messages, and news alerts.  

What started as a gathering of friends ends with each person siloed in their own world, unable to maintain basic respect and connection with fellow human beings for more than a few minutes at a time.   

We wonder why there is a mental health crisis. One that started long before the pandemic. It exploded a few years after the launch of the iPhone. Right around the time Facebook went all-in on their mobile app.  

This was the launch of the Attention Economy.  

A Battle Was Waged For Our Mind (Spoiler Alert: We Lost)  

In the Attention Economy, you are the product. Your time and attention is a valuable asset.  

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are cornerstones of the Attention Economy. The business model is simple – and devious. As summarized in an article in The Guardian: 

Facebook, Twitter and other companies use methods similar to the gambling industry to keep users on their sites,” said Natasha Schüll, the author of Addiction by Design, which reported how slot machines and other systems are designed to lock users into a cycle of addiction. “In the online economy, revenue is a function of continuous consumer attention – which is measured in clicks and time spent.

As a result, we spend more time distracted, more time “multitasking”, and more time comparing ourselves to others. This has a number of damaging effects. A study from University of London found that multitasking actually lowers IQ. A study from University of Sussex found that multitasking is correlated with damage to the region of our brain responsible for empathy and emotional control. 

But the worst part is that a number of studies indicate a link between social media use and depression, anxiety, and in some cases, suicide. 

These issues are summarized well in this video: 

You Are The Product 

By using platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, we’re seemingly making a simple trade. We get to use a “free” platform to connect with people, find inspiration, and express ourselves. In exchange, those platforms feed you some ads so they can pay their bills. But it’s not that simple.  

They are actually building a detailed dossier of sorts. A dossier of information about you. Some of the information you volunteered, such as your name, your age, where you live. But the real value comes from tracking your activity. What posts you like, what videos you watch, what links you click. That tracking doesn’t end when you leave the platform. As David Neil describes in Wired magazine:  

Facebook's tentacles stretch out across other websites and services, into the various apps you're using on your phone, and to the places you physically visit in the real world—especially if you decide to check in on Facebook while you're there.

What he says about Facebook applies to every social media platform. Big Tech is watching you 24 hours a day and collecting every last detail.  

They say this information is fundamentally used to better target which ads you see. But let’s be honest about what that really means: Big Tech compiles massive amounts of information about everything you do so they can bundle that information and sell it to the highest bidder. 

And since that information commands a really good price, these platforms will stop at nothing to hijack your attention and keep it. In fact, they have whole teams dedicated to this.  

 A Wealth Transfer More Valuable Than Money 

Big profits were an obvious motive for capturing your attention and selling it. But the game has shifted into something deeper. The only thing more valuable than capturing your attention is the ability to decide what goes into your mind.