#attention-economy

#attention-economy

The video-which Tranter later took down-seemed like yet another sign that the art of reviewing the arts was in a strange state. This year has been grim for criticism: The Associated Press stopped reviewing books; Vanity Fair winnowed its critical staff; The New York Times reassigned veteran critics to other jobs; and Chicago-the city of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel-lost its only remaining full-time print-media movie reviewer when the Chicago Tribune 's Michael Phillips took a buyout.

Last Friday night, close to a hundred of us gathered around candle-lit picnic blankets with a makeshift stage at the head of the grass. We know, that's probably not your idea of a typical night at Tompkins Square Park in downtown Manhattan - but it's safe to say we did something a bit ... different. We got off together. Off the apps, that is; after a big countdown, we deleted our accounts to digital platforms that we've simply had enough of.

We live in an era where the difference between real and artificial no longer startles us. Every day, it's there buzzing behind our screens and selfies. From avatars to synthetic voices and AI-generated images, the fake has become familiar and is an accepted part of our techno diet. But the more interesting question to me isn't how these illusions are made, it's why we all so easily believe them.

Jack Conte hates the word "influencers." As the CEO of Patreon, he would rather people call artists "creators" if what they do is build loyal fanbases willing to pay for what they do online. While platforms like TikTok encourage their power users to sell doodads on the TikTok Shop, Patreon wants people to buy into the platform's stars. To pay a few bucks a month to read what they write or listen to what they have to say.

It's almost impossible to consider what it was before it established a stranglehold on us, but there was a time when the internet seemed destined to be a beacon for technology's positive potential. Before we truly understood the dangers posed online, there was the optimistic belief that it would connect humanity for the better, democratize knowledge and information, and confront us with perspectives that we might otherwise have never encountered.

AI is fantastic! The possibilities are limitless! A true revolution! And its biggest achievement might be to push digital back to being an addition to our lives, instead of the very centre of them. Wait, what?! No! YES, but don't panic. Ads have always been there and always will be. This is not a declaration of the end of anything.

The attention economy stokes conflict, turning social media platforms into merchants of hate. One part of this dynamic concerns upsetting stories that get to the top of the feed. But why does attention run to the latest sensational murder rather than some good-news story? Social media algorithms are designed to give the most visibility to disturbing stories. 1 However, the algorithms work as they do because of the way that the attention systems of our brains evolved.

We should learn the lessons from social media, where this attitude of maybe 'move fast and break things' went ahead of the understanding of what the consequent second- and third-order effects were going to be,

Picture this: You wake up tomorrow and your phone is gone. Not broken, not lost - completely unnecessary. Your smart glasses show contextual information floating over the real world. Your smartwatch handles all interactions with a simple tap or voice command. Cameras everywhere recognise what you're looking at and instantly provide relevant data. This isn't science fiction - it's the inevitable next step.

People in their twenties in the U.S. spend nearly seven hours consuming audiovisual entertainment daily, including time on social media, streaming series and movies, video games, YouTube, and music.

In a world where AI is increasingly turning up the noise and drowning out the signal, businesses and their leaders are finding that authentic attention is crucial.