The Attention Economy

The Battle for Your Mind

Attention is finite, valuable, and increasingly contested. Every app, platform, and media outlet competes for it because attention is the foundation of influence. Where attention goes, beliefs and behaviors follow.

The Economics of Attention

Your attention has been commodified:

• Platforms sell your attention to advertisers
• Content creators optimize for engagement over truth
• Algorithms learn your triggers and exploit them
• Infinite scroll and autoplay remove natural stopping points

This creates an adversarial relationship: platforms profit from capturing your attention, regardless of whether that attention serves you.

Attention Capture Techniques

Variable Reward Schedules: Like slot machines, unpredictable rewards (likes, interesting content) create compulsive checking Completion Mechanisms: Progress bars, streaks, and collections exploit our drive to complete Social Reciprocity: Notifications about others' actions create obligation to respond FOMO Triggers: "Trending," "Limited time," and "Everyone's talking about" exploit fear of missing out