Click. Tap. Swipe. Repeat. People say they feel stuck — but researchers say it was designed that way.
The attention economy is the idea that media uses our attention as a commodity.
The more we watch and consume media, the more valuable our attention becomes to advertisers.
Social media platforms use quick, easily consumed content to make money by exchanging content for our time and attention.
As phone use and nightly doom-scrolling increase, many people feel a gradual loss of the ability to focus on the slower-paced parts of life.
August Kissinger, a junior at Brigham Young University, said she often turns to social media as a distraction when feeling stressed or sad during the day, but the sadness often grows.
“It's easy to seek something out that is consistent. You know that this will give you short-term endorphins, it'll make you feel good and it's a quick escape,” Kissinger said. “But it's a really unsatisfying escape after you're done."
Some entrepreneurs have developed products aimed at reducing screen time, including Dumbphone, which limits phone applications, and the Brick, which can physically lock a phone with a tap.
Clark Callahan, a professor of communications at Brigham Young University, said that while decreasing attention spans are a concern, the greater issue is the broader shift currently taking place.
“I think with AI, the attention economy will be transformed a little bit to an authenticity or intimacy economy,” Callahan said. “The product, what is being commodified or commercialized, is going to be moved into authenticity. That's what's gonna be sold”.
Callahan discusses these topics in his classes, including what AI is currently doing and how it may evolve over the next few years.
He said teens and young adults may be most affected, as they may stop seeking answers and advice from others and instead confide in AI.
“How it sells itself, increasingly, is a companion, which is the number one use case — which is authenticity, which is intimacy — and that's how it's being marketed, and that's how it's selling itself,” Callahan said.
Callahan said people should prioritize genuine interactions with others.
With many of these technologies still in development, opportunities exist to educate oneself and find ways to maintain balance.
“I think you have to create dichotomous interactions. You've got to be able to live your life without it to a certain extent,” Callahan said. "Have confidence in your life without it, so that when you do use it, you have the confidence to put it away."
Alyssa Hightower, a graduate student at BYU studying speech-language pathology, also shared a perspective on navigating the attention economy.
“Patience is a huge skill that we need to learn, and something that I always think about is that we need to learn how to be okay with being bored or be okay with slowing down,” Hightower said.
The attention economy may be growing, but so is the conversation about how to live within it. For a generation that grew up online, understanding the cost may be the first step toward deciding what they are willing to pay.