Week 11: Thoughts on the "Attention economy" and the choices we can make

(Readings at bottom)

The readings this week all touched on the theme of the “attention economy,” how all these social media sites and technology companies are competing for our attention. The TED talk, “How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day,” as well as the article “Our minds can be hijacked: the tech insiders who fear smartphone dystopias” had this theme as their main focus. I remember reading about the “attention economy” before, so I was not completely new to the idea, but the talk and the article really made me realize how present it is in my life. I believe I reflected on this somewhat in previous blog posts, but looking at the “attention economy” idea specifically, many of the things talked about happens in my life, perhaps the most obvious one being that I often intend to just spend a couple minutes checking over social media sites or new Reddit posts, but that quickly turns into a half hour which turns into an hour, since my brain is always thinking “how about just one more, then you can stop” after every single click. On many days, the only thing that really stops me is the fact that I need to go to class soon. And it is 100% true that the notifications pull me away from my schoolwork. They also do a good job at that as well, since I don’t want to feel like I’m missing out, so I always check them relatively soon. I think one thing that makes these “attention economies” so effective in pulling people in and keeping them there is twofold. One aspect of it is this potential promise of something good happening, like the analogy to the slot machine mentioned in the article. People gamble because of the potential for something amazing to happen, even if it doesn’t immediately. Every time, we play the odds of “what if this is something really cool to be checked out,” or something similar, since it doesn’t seem like we are losing anything. I’ve actually used this to justify checking my phone on many occasions. Often I think “well I’m just walking from one class to another, there’s no harm in checking my phone real quick,” since there doesn’t seem to be an investment there. It’s the whole “I might as well” feeling which makes it so appealing. Keeping that in mind, I thought of an idea to try to minimize spending time on the screens, that being ‘tokens’ on the phone or something. Every time you go on your phone, you lose a token. You can save up tokens for some sort of prize, but that means going on your phone less. This is very similar to the whole “Pocket points” app mentioned in the article, except you would be losing points by going on your phone instead of gaining them for not going on your phone. It’s a subtle difference, but I think it can have an impact in terms of what people actually do, since people are more likely to try and save what they already have as opposed to gain what they do not yet, at least in my view. That was a long tangent, but I still wanted to say something about the second thing that I saw as effective in this “attention economy” that I don’t think was really mentioned too much in the readings, or at least not extensively. That second thing is that promise that everything you need or is on the screen. As the experience gets customized for each individual user, each user is exposed to exactly their interests. Thus they are more likely to keep looking at those things. What’s more is the fact that many websites and social media sites are always giving opportunities to do more, and there is that constant feeling of accomplishment and reward. I believe in most, if not all, social media sites, there is something concrete that you can do to be “active,” whether it be liking a status or posting a tweet or commenting on a video. That makes it feel like the user has agency in what they are doing, when in reality that agency is limited and largely confined to doing what the “attention economy” allows the user to do. I think a lot of people would quickly get bored with social media if they couldn’t post their response to something, or if they couldn’t share a video, or whatever it might be. I see it as a sort of “fake agency,” or a “fake choice,” where people feel like they are taking charge and putting their attention where they want to, but in reality the site still has the attention, no matter if the user posts something or simply scrolls. It’s a way to keep that attention.

     

The other theme of this week was the whole idea of how do we combat this “attention economy” so that we don’t become controlled by it? I watched the TED talk on the Time Well Spent site, and a lot of what the speaker said resonated with me, mainly the line about the fact that despite knowing that he will spend more time than he intended to on the site, he still goes in and clicks on the notification. I have had similar experiences, as mentioned above. I go in to look at one thing and I end up spending a lot more time than I wanted to on the various social media sites. However, what I really found empowering in his talk is his discussion of choice, and how ultimately, technologies should be designed so that we can actively make a choice in terms of what can interrupt us at what times. I feel that there are the beginnings of that in something like the Do-not-disturb feature on the iPhone, where no notifications make the buzz or the sound except if someone calls you twice in quick succession. It’s not exactly the choice mentioned in the TED talk, but it’s a start. I often use it when I’m working on something or in class, since things have to be really important if I get called twice in a row, so I feel relatively safe that I’m not missing an emergency or anything. However, even when doing homework, I admit that I still open my phone to check if things are going on, going back to that whole fear of being left out. Going back to the concept of actively making choices to restrict our technological use, I certainly think we have the power to do that, especially with small things like the 15 habits article discusses. For me, it was always best to work towards something a little bit at a time. The times when I tried to do something big never worked out for me, so these habits are good starting points. The only problem with things like this is that it is really hard to break the old habits of looking at your phone right when you wake up, for example, so for me, I think I’d need some sort of reminder system that makes me aware of the things that I’m trying to do as opposed to just saying that I will do them and then forgetting by the next day. This can also be where technology comes in, with potential applications in the future giving us that choice of how we want to spend our time with that technology. I remember saying something in an earlier blog about turning off WiFi and the like at the beginning of the day, which is similar to some of the habits they mention, but I will say that I maybe did that for a day and then totally forgot about it. Only goes to prove my point that it becomes hard to remind myself what habits I want to develop. It is all a process, as everything is, I suppose. I can’t expect changes to happen immediately.

Also, a quick sidenote: I tried downloading the “Pocket Points” app they mentioned in the article, but it requires picking a school that I go to in order to gain points. However, Le Moyne is not on their list, and I have to be on campus in order to earn points, so it doesn’t really work in my case.

Readings

TED - Tristan Harris – How a handful of tech companies control billions of minds every day

15 habits to help you overcome digital overload

Timewellspent.io

Smartphone addiction silicon valley dystopia