The Attention Economy

What, if anything, is wrong with treating attention as the kind of thing that can be bought and sold? There are several potential concerns that can be raised about buying and selling attention in the attention economy.

 

Should Attention Ever Be Bought and Sold?

One objection is that attention is simply not the kind of thing that should ever be bought or sold.  That is, there is something about attention—the kind of thing that it is—that makes it wrong, under all conditions, to buy or sell.

 

This is the same kind of criticism that is raised about markets in so-called contested commodities.  These commodities include reproductive labour (which is commodified in commercial surrogacy arrangements, which involve paying a woman to carry and birth a child for another couple) and organs (such as kidneys). Many people think that these are simply not the kinds of things that should ever be for sale [8, 9].

 

In the case of selling reproductive labour in commercial surrogacy arrangements, for example, some people think that this uses women in an inappropriate way for mere financial profit and fails to show them proper respect [10]. Women are reduced to mere “baby making machines” and not viewed as persons with their own goals worthy of respect.

 

One might take similar issue in the case of selling attention. One might argue, for example, that technology companies are using their users for financial profit and failing to show them the proper respect [3]. We are reduced to mere “attention machines.” Our own goals and desires are disregarded and our attention is used by technology companies for their own gains.

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Photo by Gilles Lambert on Unsplash
 

Do Technology Companies Have Too Much Power?

Another ethical problem that might be raised is that in buying control over our attention from us, technology companies gain too much power.  Remember that attention both shapes how we see the world and serves as a gateway to our preferences, beliefs, and actions. In giving up control over our attention, we thus give technology companies the ability to shape our experiences, as well as our preferences, beliefs, and how we act. This gives these companies a significant amount of power over us—we are in many respects at their mercy—and that seems problematic [3, 11].

 

Of course, we as users do in principle decide to sign up for the relevant technological services. Yet we might think that the transaction between us as users and technology companies is unfair. We might think that control over what we pay attention to (and the ability to influence what we want, believe, and how we act) is too high a price to pay for the services that we get in return [3]. Or we might think that technology companies are taking advantage of the fact that we rely so much on their services [3, 5]. These days it is very difficult to go without an email address, or access to Facebook or other social media services. There is a sense in which we don’t have much of a choice but to agree to give up control over our attention, since the cost of going without the services these companies offer to us is too high.

 

Targeted Ads: Manipulative or Giving the Consumer What They Want?

The previous two ethical issues about the attention economy were about whether buying attention from us is disrespectful and whether in doing so technology companies take unfair advantage of our dependency on them. A different ethical concern can be raised about the specific ways online companies direct our attention. In this regard, some critics warn that advertisement companies may manipulate us to get us to buy their products [12]. Online algorithms rely on an individual’s search history, personalized data, and other online activity to get an idea of what they’re interested in, and tailor ads to those interests. This is a much more powerful way of advertising than traditional print or television ads, since the advertisements that I am presented with will be specifically tailored to my interests and (we can suppose) are more likely to have an influence on my behaviour than ads that are not relevant to what I am interested in. On the one hand, some people argue that these advertisements are just giving me what I want – they are helping me to connect to products and services that I would like to be connected to [13]. On the other hand, others argue that targeted advertisement is taking advantage of what they know about me and manipulating my desires and behaviour for their own personal gain [14]. It’s like a friend who knows you very well and knows how to exploit your weaknesses to get what they want.

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Does the Attention Economy Cause Mental Health Problems & Lead to Unwanted Distraction?
The previous ethical issues arose from the type interactions individuals have with technology companies. Other concerns are often raised about the harmful consequences that the attention economy has on individuals. We have seen that the attention economy incentivizes technology companies to design their platforms to get people hooked. After all, the more time people spend online, the more money these companies make. But this comes at a cost to their users.

 

In some cases, online activity and social media use becomes an addiction [4, 15, 16]. And excessive time spent online—whether the result of an addiction or not—is associated with harmful effects on individuals. There are, for example, links between prolonged use of social media and lower levels of individual well-being. One study, for example, has demonstrated links between the use of social media and higher levels of anxiety and depression in American college students [17].  There is also evidence that suggests that limiting the time one spends online can lead to less feelings of loneliness and depression [18].

 

Some people also worry that distractions from our devices may lead to overall shortened attention spans, even going so far as to claim that our attention spans are now shorter than that of goldfish [19]!  While that myth has been debunked [20], there is reason to believe that interruptions from our digital devices do affect our concentration and how effectively one is able to complete certain tasks. In one study, it was shown that people who are interrupted from work tasks do not immediately return to that work after being interrupted. [21].  This means that when switching between reading a book and checking text messages, you likely lose more than just the 3 seconds it might take you to read the text! 

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Photo by Ahmed Hasan on Unsplash

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Another worry is that digital distraction takes us away from other things that we could be doing – like socializing with friends and family [22]. It is not uncommon to see a group of people out and about, paying attention to their phones rather than to what is around them and to each other.  When one pays attention to one thing, one doesn’t pay (as much) attention to other things. Think about Charly in our earlier example, who spends their time watching cat videos. We might think that they are missing out on thinking about and doing things that matter – things that matter to others and that could matter to them. This invites the question we raised earlier: what should we pay attention to? Are there some things that are more deserving of our attention than others?

 

Selling our attention arguably also affects the kinds of things that it is possible for us to pay attention to. In selling our attention, we open ourselves up to distraction. This will make it difficult to engage in activities that require focused and sustained attention. This includes things like going to school or work, and engaging in politically important matters, to which we will turn in the next lesson.

 

There are thus potential negative effects that digital distraction and social media use has on individuals. Given all these bad consequences, is it morally wrong that technology companies design their platforms to maximize user engagement? Utilitarians will say that it depends on whether the benefits that people get from technological services (e.g., access to email, the ability to search for information, social networking opportunities) outweigh these costs. Deontologists, on the other hand, might say that technology companies should never use persons as profits, and that doing so is wrong even if there are good consequences.

 

If we think that digital distractions are problematic, we can ask another question: whose responsibility it is to minimize these distractions? On the one hand, we might say that we as individuals have the responsibility to resist these distractions – to unplug, take part in a digital detox, practice mindfulness, and so on [23]. On the other hand, we might think that solutions like these are like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound: the problem is too deep for the proposed solution or solutions [24]. Instead, we might say that the companies that are responsible for these distractions should be restricted in those activities. Any company that sells some product will be responsible to ensure that it is safe to use. Likewise, if technological companies design their platforms in ways that are harmful to individuals (because they are addictive or manipulative), the companies should be responsible for fixing that. We might think, for example, that regulations should be introduced to limit the extent to which and way that our devices call for our attention.

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