Attention Deficit in the Digital Age

Both articles, "Welcome to the Attention Economy" and "Information Surplus in the Digital Age,” really put into perspective how valuable attention is. I never really thought of attention as comparable to money (and sometimes even more valuable that it.) In the first article, I was able to relate to Rob Lippincott. Between balancing three jobs and being a full-time student, I’m constantly checking my phone for text and email updates, even on my time off. However, in dedicating my time to one thing I’m inevitably neglecting something else. This “information surplus” the author talked about stuck out to me because as a busy person, I find there’s never a shortage of things to devote my attention to, but there’s definitely a limit to how much of my time I’m willing to devote to certain things. The idea of wanting to market items for free show that even items with minimal cost won’t necessarily win over our attention. In the example of print media, although most newspapers are relatively cheap, many people still won’t buy them. What’ll be interesting is how print media finds a way to make newspapers marketable, profitable, and attention grabbing enough for readers.

In the second article, our professor elaborated more on the digital age. Something I thought was interesting was the idea that the younger generation goes online for “anything but news.” I like to have faith that younger people care enough about the world and their surroundings to be informed about what’s going on, and since I know they’re not buying print media, I’m interested to see how they get their news, if anything. Another thing that stuck out to me was the turn to more “click bait-y media” to get viewer’s attention. As we discussed in class, many prestigious news outlets are resorting to publishing things that are arguably un-newsworthy, but attention-getting to get more viewers. I hope that in the digital age, news outlets will not stop publishing actual news for the sake of cheap clicks and retweets.