Mohamed Bouaida
In a time in which information flows endlessly, and in which thousands of digital messages compete for our eyes every second, the concept of the “attention economy” has emerged to describe a new reality, as human attention is no longer just a state of mind, but rather has become the rarest and most valuable resource in the digital market.
The challenge is no longer in producing content, but in the ability to attract and retain consumer attention amidst the relentless noise.
This profound shift explains many of the strategies and designs of technology companies that aim to keep the user engaged for as long as possible.
So what is the attention economy? Simply put, it is a system that sees human attention as a rare commodity that media, commercial and social institutions are competing to seize, as the competition is no longer just about money, but about time and mental focus. When you spend hours on a specific application or interact with an advertisement, you are actually paying with the most valuable thing you have, which is your attention.
As the simplest example of this, when a game advertisement is repeated on your phone, at first you find that it is short in duration and gives you the option to quickly reject, then its duration lengthens and the duration of the delay in the appearance of the rejection option becomes longer, noting that the advertisement always gives you the image of losing despite the ease of winning, which motivates you to subscribe to prove that it is an easy game to win. If you refuse to subscribe, it gives you the opportunity to play for one round without subscribing. If you play, you will find yourself immersed in it despite the appearance of a sign. Rejection, and here specifically you have truly fallen into the trap, even if you do not participate in the game.
The value does not stop at time, but extends to the data you generate during your use, which feeds the algorithms of those platforms to personalize content and ads more accurately, which increases their ability to attract more attention… and more profits.
The origin of the idea goes back to Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon, who said in the 1970s: “Scarcity of information leads to abundance of attention, and abundance of information leads to scarcity of attention.”
This sentence was said by “Simon” in the seventies, so how are we in a world flooded with information? Where attention has become the real currency. The attention economy has gone through several stages in its development: – Before the Internet: competition was limited between newspapers, television, and radio.
– The first digital phase: The war on the “number of clicks” began.
The current stage: Digital platforms compete for “continuous engagement,” with tools such as infinite scrolling, instant notifications, and rapid interaction, all designed to exploit human psychology.
What makes us wonder about the importance of the attention economy? Which we can summarize as it constitutes a huge economic value, as attention determines the value of advertisements, and thus the value of major technology companies. It is the fuel that powers billions of dollars in the digital market.
In addition to its impact on content creation, it pushed producers towards fast and attractive content, even at the expense of depth and quality, and excitement and superficiality became tools to ensure spread.
Despite the importance of the attention economy at this time, it faces several cognitive and social challenges, most notably distraction and difficulty maintaining deep attention.
In addition to digital addiction, which means the constant need to check the phone and interact, this leads us to the syndrome of fear of losing the phone, which is known as “Nomophobia”, which is the intense fear and anxiety of being away from the mobile phone, losing it, or being unable to use it. This condition leads to symptoms such as panic when the battery runs out, constant anxiety, addiction, and social isolation.
This leads to intellectual polarization, as algorithms prefer content that arouses strong feelings, relying on emotion rather than reason, which may promote divisions and extremism, and this is clear in audience interaction and comments.
Understanding the attention economy is the first step toward regaining control of what is most precious to us, and in a world where platforms compete for every minute of our day, attention management becomes a vital skill for the conscious individual seeking to maintain focus and intellectual depth in the midst of this digital storm.
