Attention economy

Your attention is the most valuable commodity in the digital age. It is something all digital Giants are fighting for.

On rough average a person stays up 18 hours a day. Out of which he is attentive for only a few hours. In today’s day and age, we utilize most of these attentive hours on our phones.

This is why our parents have problems with us remaining glued to our devices and having little concern for what’s going around. Has it ever happened to you that your mother told you to do something but you were too busy with your phone that you didn’t listen to her but still nodded your head as if you heard it all. But later when she scolds you for not doing the work despite being told, you’re left wondering when did she tell you to do this work.

I’m pretty sure this must have happened with most of you. The worst is when my mother tells me to watch the milk while it’s on the stove to boil. It’s almost certain to fall down. I don’t know why she still trusts me with all this despite knowing that the chances of me messing things up are so high.

But the main point here being that our attention has shifted from the real world to the devices you’re currently holding in our hands. This attention is limited to a few hours a day and whatever is limited carries value. So your attention is valuable.

This is the reason why you see ads in between YouTube videos, simply to get your valuable attention. It is profitable for the company to do so but for you it just breaks your attention and takes it to something entirely unrelated to what you are interested in. Like a zomato ad playing in between a astro-physics video.

This is the reason why our attention spans are falling at an alarming rate. Ads hinder our attention spans. This is profitable for internet companies but not so much for us. We have to watch ads in return for watching YouTube videos for free.

We need to realize that the fight for our valuable attention is intense among the internet companies. But they value our attention worth much less than what it is actually worth.

What you pay attention to decides what mindset you carry. It shapes your thoughts. It builds your identity.

You better start paying attention to what deserves your attention than what does not because it’s the most valuable resource you own in today’s age.

Also, if you’ve noticed, we never “give” attention instead we “pay” attention. It’s like a currency we need to learn to spend wisely.

-ChoubeySahab