The Attention Economy and the Collapse of Cognitive Autonomy

Rethinking the cognitive foundations of the attention economy

The attention economy is the economic system in which human attention is the scarce resource. This literature takes a particular passage in Herbert Simon’s seminal Chapter Designing Organization fo...

Chris Hayes on the attention economy

A conversation about how attention was commodified, why it's so easy to steal, where industry is looking for new supplies, and whether democracy can survive this.

An attention economic perspective on the future of the information age

In this paper, we apply an attention economic perspective to explain current and predict future trends in our society. We first describe the rise of the attention economy, and we highlight one important mechanism of this economy: a spiral of attention scarcity. Second, we show that an attention economic perspective provides glimpses of a potential future. In particular, we predict an information environment that increasingly targets citizens with attention-grabbing content, form, and technology; a continuing trend toward excessive media consumption levels; and a continuing trend toward inattentive uses of information. We also predict increasing problems of public misinformation and misconceptions; an increased prevalence of certain mental and physical health issues; and an increased reliance on technology to perform mental tasks. At the end of this paper, we show why and how despite these predictions, alternative futures are conceivable. These alternatives largely depend on the behavior of various social actors. We discuss resistance to the attention economy by consumers and producers, a laissez-faire policy toward the attention economy, a policy of taxing attention-seeking efforts, and the promotion of public values in regulatory policies toward the internet.

The Great Attention Heist | Los Angeles Review of Books

A new book on how attention became a commodity.

How We Pay Attention Changes the Very Shape of Our Brains

Imagine arriving at the airport just in time to catch a plane. Everything in your behavior betrays the heightened concentration of your attention. Your mind on alert, you look for the departures si…

How to reclaim your attention from the distraction economy | Psyche Videos

Could you watch this video on full screen, 1x speed, with no distractions? Here are five steps to rebuild your attention span

The attention market—and what is wrong with it

Attention is described as a “scarce commodity” that is traded in “a marketplace.” This, it is further claimed, contributes to a “widespread sense of attentional crisis.” But is there really an attention market, and if so, what, if anything, is wrong with it? We defend the claim that there are markets in attention. We provide an account of such attention markets and use that account to address what is morally wrong with them. Our account draws on knowledge of how attention works and what roles it plays in the mind. The attention market trades in an ability to influence our attention – somewhat (though not exactly) like the labor market trades in an ability to influence how we use our capacity for work. Specifically, the commodity it trades in is attentional landscaping potential, viz. the ability to systematically influence patterns of attention by changes to the sensory environment individuals are exposed to. Attention markets thus, we argue, commodify influence over a human capacity that plays a central role in shaping individual experience, agency, and belief formation. This feature of attention markets makes them ethically problematic. As markets in access to external influence, attention markets pose a special threat to individual autonomy and escape the classical liberal defense of free markets. Those who value autonomy should worry about the attention markets that exist today.

Attention is all we have

A conjectural theory of cognitive inequality

Overcoming information overload with circular attention economies - Cosmik Labs

The Birth of the Attention Economy

The rise of the cheap, daily newspaper in the 19th century remade how Americans engaged with the world.

How Focus Became More Valuable Than Intelligence

This may be the most important problem of our lifetime.

Everything Is Television

A theory of culture and attention

Big Tech’s attention economy can be reformed. Here’s how.

The business model is doing irreparable harm to society. But there is an alternative, and we don’t need to destroy the tech giants to get there.

Thinking Fast, Slow, Artificially: AI and Your Brain

AI can boost your decisions — or quietly undermine them. Wharton researchers introduce a new theory of cognition that every leader needs to understand.