Our attention is quite valuable. It is currently more valuable than ever. If you wonder how all the tech companies are making their money it is by gathering, packaging, and selling our data. To them our data has a monetary value, which is actually much less than we would expect. I believe at last checking that it is somewhere between $8 and $11 per month. That isn’t the value that I’d like to focus on. Instead I’d like to further delve into the idea that where we focus our attention forms our perception of our reality.
Reality is a bizarre and interesting concept nowadays. With so much media and stimuli it is hard to really land on a shared reality. Never before has our species had the opportunity to be exposed to so many different points of view and yet also never before has the opportunity existed to live inside such isolating echo-chambers. The two ideas upon first pondering seem to be at odds with one another. How can we at the same time be exposed to so much and yet choose to listen to so little?
Maybe it is part of our nature. We seem to be a species of contradictions. As relatively small, weak, clawless, and small-toothed animals we’ve been able to reach the top of the food chain through our ability to cooperate and believe in shared fictions. Our ability to reason and communicate with complicated language has allowed us to conquer the planet. But in our conquering we’ve laid bare our hubris. We can’t seem to stop warring with each other, and despite overwhelming evidence, we can’t seem to take real steps towards healing the damage we’ve done to our planet.
We seem to want two very different things at the same time. We have a need to belong to something and also have a need to be separate from something. We need our friends, but apparently we also need our enemies. We want to belong to an ‘in’ group but sometimes the only way that we can define that group is through the contrast with the ‘other’.
Seems that the apparent need for both friends and enemies has created fertile grounds for those looking to hijack our attention. Traditional media, advertising, public relations, and social media are all attempting to pull us into their group by demonizing another group. Essentially saying that if you want to be safe and feel valued then you need to join our group. If you want to have value you’ll use our product as it is the answer to being dirty, poor, irresponsible, foolish, etc.
When we think of attention being hijacked by advertisers we can have mixed feelings. Some are horrified that their data was taken and used in an effort to manipulate them. Others perceive this data collection and analysis as a good thing. They see it as a step towards efficiency. Our modern computing capabilities have distilled their choices for goods and services down to only the ones that they’d really want anyway. Both arguments have their merits, but the problem becomes a bit more nefarious when we consider that this same system of attention hijacking is directing our ideologies, values, and actions.
Attention is the new commodity. The ability to grab, and more importantly keep, ones attention is more important now than ever. And there are a number of tools that have been created to do those two things. Attracting someone’s attention is old hat. That process has been precisely refined over the 20th century. It is more a science than craft at this point. Keeping one’s attention over the long haul is a bit more challenging.
The ever-advancing power and efficacy of computing is starting to make keeping attention a lot more doable. The ability to collect massive amounts of your data is new. The ability to then analyze that data to predict with frightening precision what will hold your attention is also quite new. So new that even the people that create the algorithms and the AI used to do that collection and analysis aren’t completely sure how it works.
They have discovered that ‘outrage’ and ‘disgust’ are great at keeping us engaged. By defaulting to those two human reactions a platform can keep our attention longer than with basically any other predicted emotion. They can perform this in such a way that it seems the decision is ours. Have you ever scrolled Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Ticktock, etc. to the point that you’ve cleared things off your todo list because your time and attention had evaporated? Have you ever searched Youtube for a specific query and found yourself on your third, fourth, or tenth video?
The complex algorithms know your next move before you do. How can you expect to beat something that is seeing hundreds, thousands or maybe even billions of moves ahead of you. The fight isn’t fair. It knows what content has the best chance to keep you engaged. And it has no concern what that content is. So beware.
Your attention is quite possibly your most prized possession, especially in the current times. Where you place that attention will define your life. It will form your reality. Scrutinize where you currently place your attention. Being aware of what we are doing is the most important tool we currently have. We must be mindful of what we are doing because there is so much out there trying to hijack our attention, our dollars, and our will.
Questioning what we let into our minds and lives is the only defense we really have. We needn’t completely eliminate all these things, but being aware of how they work and what their motives are will hopefully lead to a life we have more control over. Resulting in a mentality and reality that is healthier than the one they would pick for us.
I greatly appreciate your time and attention and hope you’ve found value here.
Thanks for reading.
Billy's Briefs 