The attention economy has become (for good reason), a model of online interaction and engagement that has steadily gained traction in the recent past. And the reason that it is for a good reason, is that not only does it appear to be a “true” model, but it’s one that seems to become only more relevant and applicable as we progress.
In this age of near instant access to information, products and services, the number of things competing for our attention is at an all time high, and shows no signs of abating.
The Attention Economy
Although there is no end to the things that demand our attention, there is a definite limit to the number of things we can devote that attention to.
There is a definite limit to the number of things we can pay attention to.
There are only so many hours (minutes) of the day that can be spent looking at anything.
It didn’t take savvy marketers long to realise that all their ads, all their products, all their services sought to draw our attention (at the right time of course) in order to even reach the stage where we might be considering them as possibly being worth our money.
Every marketing method, every tactic, every bit of content or copy or minute of film are worthless. Unless you can get somebody (and preferably many somebodies of course) to pay attention. And time, as the old aphorism would have it, is money.
And thus was born the “attention economy.”
The Value Of Attention
It’s a term that has a definite appeal to me. As somebody who spends most of each day dividing his attention between many different things, I’m all too aware of the demands made upon that attention, and valuable it can be.
Every day I’m forced to make critical decisions on where to focus my attention. And if I’m paying attention to one thing, it means that something else is not getting done.
Decisions, decisions…
(I’m sure that, by now, we’re all familiar with the idea that multi-tasking is a lie. That, in the vast majority of cases, the more finely you divide your attention, the less efficiently any given task is being performed, and that what we actually delude ourselves into believing is multi-tasking, is really more akin to rapid task switching than anything else.)
It can probably go without saying that most, if not all, of you, my hypothetical audience, are in similar circumstances. It always seems like there is more to do than there is time to do it in, and almost every second of that time, our awareness is being inundated by fresh demands on our attention. Emails that must be responded to, calls that must be made or taken, decisions to decide on, and so ad infinitum.
The Rising Tide
I used the word inundated up there. It’s a good word. It’s a good word, because I’m about to make the analogy that our attention is tidal. There is a relatively fixed amount of it, but it is influenced by external bodies, gathering first in one direction, then in the other.
The rising tide is characterised by enthusiasm.
And like the tide, our attention ebbs and flows. Perhaps not as regularly as the tide, perhaps not in as fixed a pattern. But it ebbs and flows in relation to a wide range of factors, both external and internal, and that movement has its own effects on us. Our feelings, our thoughts, even our actions are impacted by the rise and fall of our attention.
The rising tide is characterised by enthusiasm. We are excited, hopeful and optimistic. We throw ourselves into a new project, adopt some new idea or product. We’re determined. Committed. This one is going to make a real difference.
The Falling Tide
And then we burn out. Our attention ebbs like the lowest spring tide, and we can’t summon the effort, the motivation, the drive. It was a waste of time. It’s time has passed. We can’t remember what we ever saw in this in the first place. It gets abandoned. Or worse…we do such a half-assed job that it would have been better if we did abandon it.
Like so many other things, attention is cyclical. It’s very difficult to maintain that high level of attention on a single thing. Other things are clamouring for their turn. Maybe this thing is better. Faster, cheaper, more effective. Maybe that thing is.
The falling tide is characterised by disillusionment.
But whatever the next thing is, the falling tide is characterised by disillusionment. Exhaustion. Hopelessness. Attention does not (cannot?) simply switch from one peak to another. In between must lie the troughs. The time when we are not interested in anything. When we cannot even remember our enthusiasm for the last thing.
The Real Cost
And therein, I think, lies the real cost of the attention economy. Our inability to maintain our attention on any given thing.
In part, we again have external influences to blame. Things like the 24-hour news cycle. The relentless churn of newer, bigger better. We are almost forced to switch our attention from item to item to item, and every time we do, the chances of backtracking become smaller.
But why do these things exist? Why are we constantly being presented with more and more options and versions and variations that purport to be new but are largely the same? Perhaps because our behaviour makes it look like that is what we want?
As always, I have no solutions…
Humans are contrary creatures. No matter what we say we want, when we are given it, we say we wanted something else. Perhaps that’s what the attention drive is actually for. An effort to pre-empt our inevitable boredom, with the consequence that we are bored with everything.
As always, I have no solutions.
The relentless churn will continue as everybody (and everything) demands it’s moment in the spotlight. When it bothers you, spare a thought for how it got to be this way. And whether it’s something we thought we wanted.