the expanded capacity of technology and all of the information that comes along with it, there is an incredible battle for perhaps your most prized possession: your attention.
A Scarcity of Attention
When I think of all the things in our world that compete for our attention, the first place that comes to mind is Times Square. It is a battlefield for attention where billboards are stacked upon one another using a variety of colors and flashing lights. There is flickering, neon, and other forms of luminescence all selling something, from Broadway shows to hamburgers and fancy red cars. These signs are positioned within every possible inch of our sightlines, all with the purpose of drawing our thoughts to their product or experience. Of course, I cannot forget the people dressed as furry cartoon characters that invite you to take a picture (yes, I have done it and there is photographic evidence of such an experience). But if you have had the opportunity to walk through Times Square, you might remember how difficult it was to focus on any one particular sign or activity. You could be fixated on an ad on a high‐definition screen but then suddenly become fixated on an even brighter set of lights. During the entire experience, you are likely focusing your attention on a variety of different sights and sounds, sometimes within the same second. Actually, you might walk away from Times Square and not be able to recall any of the individual ads or signs because there were so many stimuli and it was difficult to process any one particular item.
Most of our daily lives do not look anything like Times Square, but think of all of the activities, devices, and information sources that you come into contact with every day that, like those neon signs, all compete for your attention in one way or another. In his morning routine, Josh was devoting his attention towards multiple activities simultaneously. He has dressed himself for work many, many times and so therefore it requires very little thought or attention. He could get dressed while listening to the news or thinking about his day ahead. However, what if for the first time, he had to tie a bow tie? He might have difficulty listening to the weather while simultaneously focusing his attention on making that first perfect knot. Since it is a new (and complex) task, the bow tie would require additional attention that would take away from his ability to concentrate on anything else. In this case, Josh might ignore the news or even turn off the TV so he could focus on his bow tie. Attention is a zero‐sum game because we have only so much to give. If all of our attention is devoted to doing something, we cannot “dig deeper” and find more for something else. The popular analogy of our attention acting as a bucket of water is apt: every cup or spoonful of water that we take out leaves us less in the bucket, or in the case of attention, less to devote elsewhere to other things. So, if the amount of human attention is fixed, it is valuable, perhaps every bit as valuable as any other resource we can offer any other person or activity.
Herbert Simon, the Nobel Prize–winning economist and cognitive psychologist, was one of the first to articulate the basis for an attention economy. He suggested that “a wealth of information creates a scarcity of what that information consumes,” which is attention. Essentially, we pay for items not necessarily with money but with our attention. Websites and apps lure us to visit or stay on their platforms with catchy animations or lots of information crowded into one site, hoping that something will catch our eye and get us clicking further. With almost universal access to the internet, there is a wealth of information that is both free and accessible. At the same time, our cognitive capacity has not changed. Therefore, we have to make decisions regarding where we devote our attention.
Speaking of decisions, the buffet line at almost any Las Vegas casino is a fabulous place. These colossal gardens of gluttony offer nearly every type of food imaginable. However, our plates – and our stomachs – have only so much capacity. We cannot possibly consume all of the food that is available to us, so we have to make decisions. We can certainly sample a little bit of a lot of things, but we cannot expect to consume everything. Therefore, since we cannot have it all, we have to prioritize what we want, or perhaps need, the most. Like our plates and stomachs at the buffet, our cognitive capacity is limited. We have to consciously make decisions regarding the information we consume at any given time, filtering what we want and need from what we don't. Incidentally, making healthy choices for both information and buffets requires immense self‐discipline – and sometimes antacids afterwards!
What are your goals for today? What is it that you want to accomplish? Is there something that you want to experience, whether connecting with a close friend or feeling the burn of a great workout? What about your long‐term goals for yourself? Is it advancing in your career or developing deeper connections with those around you? Do you want to rebuild that old car that your father owned? Perhaps learn a musical instrument? We all have short‐ and long‐term goals for ourselves that relate to our personal and professional lives. In some cases, barriers to meeting those goals might be a shortage of time or money. It might be related to raising children, a new job, or caring for an aging parent. However, in many cases, the biggest hurdle to our goals is merely distraction. For me, I began to realize that technology was a big distraction: the 10, 20, or 30 times a day that I was mindlessly picking up my smartphone to scroll through a newsfeed or fire up the Twitter outrage machine. Initially, I thought that the reason why I wasn't reaching some of my goals was the usual “not enough time” or “things are busy at work.” As time went on, I began to reflect upon where I was devoting my attention and found that where I was investing much of it was wasteful. At the surface, it isn't that devoting enormous amounts of attention towards social media or another information platform is good or bad. Rather, it is up for debate for each of us as to whether they are consistent or inconsistent with our goals. As we all know, there is never enough time and life is always busy. However, things can seem a lot busier when you're fighting a consistent distraction that is with you almost all of the time. For me, mindlessly picking up my phone for no apparent reason came at a price. That price was my attention on the things that mattered most to me. It only occurred to me when the goals I created for myself, both professionally and personally, weren't being realized.
By‐Products of This Information Age
At the risk of stating the obvious, the goals for the technology around us are not consistent with our own personal goals. Media outlets – through nonstop news coverage and clickbait headlines – are designed to lure us onto their channels and sites. Social media has a vested interest in keeping you on their platforms for as long as possible through the use of algorithms and clever little “rewards” that we will discuss later in the book. We engage in our newsfeeds or the endless recommended videos on YouTube at the expense of many of our short‐ and long‐term goals. Echo chambers and outrage machines keep us emotionally vested in content that we post and engage. When it comes to social media platforms, as Mark Weinstein describes it, “We are not the users, we are the product.” The realization that something you engage routinely is not aligned with your goals is obvious but also important. Think about other technology around us. Our cars, washing machines, and microwaves are all designed to meet our goals, whether it's transportation or popping popcorn. Our smartphones, and all of the apps that go along with it, are not the same. They have important functions in our daily lives, but it is not as simple as giving us what we both want and need to live our best lives. There is at best a Venn diagram between our goals and theirs with a definite yet small crossover. It is not a complete alignment.
Averaging close to four hours of screen time a day, we have become reliant upon social media as a primary outlet to engage others, some of whom we know and some we don't. This connection through technology is valuable when it accompanies in‐person relationships, but is isolating if it is our primary vehicle for engagement with others. When we connect in person, whether with a colleague or a friend, we witness the facial expressions and the vocal inflections that come from the dialogue. The processed element of connecting via instant message lacks authenticity, leaving those who stay online for hours per day isolated. In many respects, technology places us in a bubble that we carry with us, isolating us from the people around us and limiting authentic interactions with new people. In her book Alone Together, MIT professor Sherry Turkle states, “a train
