First created on May, 2019
We’re obsessed with driving the conversation in time management, deep work and productivity in our ever-changing world of work. Timely’s remote-first team works across 20 countries to offer a unique perspective.
Think of your most valuable commodity. Chances are that “attention” isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But to companies all around the world, there’s nothing more valuable, and they spend millions trying to capture it. Technology has evolved to take advantage of us and it does it surreptitiously, tapping into aspects of our psychology. It’s created something even more sinister in its wake: an environment of perpetual digital distraction. Here’s what to know about the attention economy—and how to break free from it.
What is the attention economy?
In recent years, the boom in digital content has led to a clash for control between companies: a fight for our attention. This is the attention economy and, according to Tristan Harris, a former design ethicist at Google, it’s “shaping everything about contemporary life”. It’s a world we all live in—even if we don’t know it.
At its simplest, companies are targeting our attention to make money. They’re placing ads they know might interest us and try to grab as much of our focus as possible. Technology has been engineered to hook us—not to keep us entertained or blindly serve our best interests, but to increase the inventory of ad space a company can sell. What we’re really seeing, when those ads pop up saying “other things that might interest you”, is a market war led by major companies in Silicon Valley.
The digital world is monopolized by three companies: Google, Apple, and Facebook. But Google, Apple and Facebook don’t care about you as a person; they care about their revenue, which means they care about holding your attention. Their ultimate aim is to keep you scrolling and searching, using their products over competitors’.
It’s all in the money
Advertizing is what makes these huge platforms their billions. Your viewing history is tracked for the sole purpose of showing you tailored content, whether it’s the news that Facebook shows you or the ads that appear on Instagram. By using information like the time we spend on a site or our click-through rate, these companies can control us, and the more we participate, the more powerful their control.
But our attention is a cunning resource—it learns to tune into interesting, unpredictable information in our environment and pass over normal, predictable parts. So the more “used” we are to seeing tailored ads, the less effective they become at holding our focus. Sadly, this has led to attention economy tactics becoming increasingly aggressive. Videos now autoplay onYouTube, Netflix and Facebook, and songs are played in video games to craftily permeate our consciousness.
There’s no moral fiber to be found in the attention economy. All these progressively forceful tactics exist just so people spend more time on platforms. It’s not about our intentions or why we’re on these sites; it’s about tapping into our impulses and trying to dominate them. And as such, companies who compete in the attention economy often do so with little regard for the effect it has on our wellbeing.
What the attention economy is doing to you
Let’s explore a few of the consequences the attention economy has for us—the consumer.
A culture of perpetual distraction
Pings, pop-ups, notifications – on average, people check their devices 80 times a day, whether it’s WhatsApp, email or Slack messages for work. It takes more than 20 minutes to get back into the flow once you’ve been interrupted, so even just “one little look” can have a huge consequences for our focus. Since we’re constantly distracted, it’s impossible for us to create the conditions for concentrated “deep work”, which provides real meaning and work satisfaction.