Pay Attention!
It is the fastest growing resource on the planet. Its potential is limitless. The richest companies on the planet harvest it. What is it?
Did you guess? If not, I’m afraid you’ll have to read on…and spend some of it.
Still haven’t got it? Wondering how long I can keep the suspense? That is rather the point because it’s what we increasingly fritter away every day and the richest companies on the planet scoop it up and monetise it by deploying tricks just like this to keep us clicking and tapping.
Yes! It’s our attention. And you’ve just spent about 6 seconds of it on me, and possibly more if you think it might be worthwhile to you - no more than 2 minutes, I promise! Even those of you who guessed it first time are hopefully curious about this topic. It warrants considerable curiosity but possibly not for the reasons you think (there I go again! Get to the point….)
Your most precious resource - squandered?
No matter how wealthy you are you can’t buy time. You can buy time-saving products and services, and maybe even life-extending products & services, but how you spend your time is as important to rich you as to poor you. The difference is choice: wealthier people tend to have more choices about how to use their time than poorer people. Most of us have to do stuff we would prefer not to do in order to get paid and do stuff that we would prefer to do. A lawyer may get paid hundreds of dollars an hour and a shop assistant earn minimum wage, yet both may hate their jobs. Even if you like your job there are days where you wish you’d rather be doing something else. The point is, we all, rich and poor, wish we could use our time better, or wish we had more of it - it is the great human leveller, our most precious substance.
From a software or content producer’s perspective, some of us are trying to save you time but most of us, in the internet age, are competing for it. Yes, for your attention, aggressively. We’re prepared to build vast, seemingly useful, seemingly free services (eg. social media) for it. Prepared to pay for it, at least for a finite “freemium” time. Prepared to sensationalise, exaggerate or simply lie for it. Why? Because it is a growing resource in a world of seemingly ever-dwindling exploitable resources? Yes, but there’s an even more compelling reason: because it is cheap. Whether you’re a lawyer or a shop assistant, the cost to acquire your attention is the same, and the marginal cost, the cost to acquire one more of you, is virtually zero $.
While the overall supply of attention is growing, as world population grows, the fight for this lucrative resource is increasingly clamorous. Social media pump ever-smaller but tastier morsels into our feeds. News media shriek clickbait headlines and peddle ever-more divisive, outrage-sparking opinions that crowd out the facts in the melee for our attention.
Pay attention to your attention! Focus.
So, what can we do? We may not be able to choose work versus leisure time but, as with food, we can choose what media to consume. Where to pay our attention. As you consume media always be asking the following questions:-
Is this best use of my time? Is this the right time to consume this media, or am I just killing time watching stuff? Could I use this time doing something more leisurable? Would I pay this platform to watch this stuff? I effectively am, with my time, so is it worth it?
Is the content providing the right outcome? It’s amazing how easy it is to get sucked into a feed or an interesting but irrelevant story or factoid. Why did I pick up my phone/tablet? Get into the habit of specifying an outcome whenever you pick up your device, and stick to that outcome. How often has “I’m just going to check my email” become a journey into social feeds, chats, video links, interesting articles etc.? Bringing intentionality to each device interaction is a great way to retain control of your attention.
It really is a very simple habit to form whenever you’re consuming content: ask the two questions above. If you haven’t defined an outcome for the second question, put the device down, think of the outcome, then pick it up again. It may look silly, but it reinforces the habit of defining an outcome before you pick up the device.
And that’s my 2 minutes! If you enjoyed this article, please share it with a friend or two and subscribe for more weekly media nutrition tidbits.