MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE?

By Aditi Gupta, Kalindi College 

Since the beginning of human history, information is said to be scarce. The information about the availability of fertile lands, inevitable danger of floods or the attack of a beast was derived on the basis of hit and trial methods. Over time through evolution, knowledge of reading and writing and experience of handling adverse situations, humans asymptotically approached the method of making rational guesses with all the information available to them. Over more decades and centuries with the development and the evolution of the education system, humans approached the method of making educated guesses. This was a very rough structure and the only aim intended for sketching this was to exemplify the scarce availability of information since the start of human history.

The very basic definition of Economics is the allocation of scarce resources in order to satisfy the unlimited wants of the consumers in the best possible manner.

Do you think Information is still a scarce resource today in the 21st century?

With the availability of almost every book in the pdf form for free or Google having the solutions to all those difficult assignments, literature and facts, information availability today is boundless for anyone with an internet connection and a device to surf it on!

We are a search away from accessing information on diverse subjects and topics.

On observing these examples, we can unambiguously conclude that in today's era attention and not information is a scarce resource.

We have a plethora of information on music, movies, books, hobbies and fields that we cannot even imagine but what is lacking is intangible yet valuable human attention. Over time, sources of information and its accessibility increased but the number of hours in a day or our mental capabilities to focus on multiple aspects remained constant. As a result, through a transition, today attention and not information is the limiting factor.

Image Credit : Google Images

One simple observation is that in English we "pay attention" to a detail or thing and as a result we are depleting our budget of mental resources and time on that particular thing by sacrificing to do something else which was on our to-do list.

The preciousness of our attention has led to the creation of an Attention Economy. This term was coined by Psychologist, Economist and Nobel Laureate Herbert A. Simon who noted that "a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention" and that attention is the "bottle-neck of human thought" We are shifting from a material-based economy to an attention-based economy.

Attention is a valuable resource especially in the digital era to almost all the sectors of the economy ranging from households, firms and government on a broad basis.

In Economics a well-celebrated example of the exception of the law of demand is the demand for diamond- a good of conspicuous consumption whose demand increases when the price increases because as its price increases, other things remaining constant, its show-off value increases and consumers demand it more to grab their neighbours or friends' attention towards their richness of wealth.

Nowadays attention can be termed even as a currency as most organizations strategically try to make the consumers buy a premium to get access or superior quality service or volunteer by giving their time on their applications. Spotify and other music apps can be quoted in this category. The unpaid version forces you to listen to advertisements which are often irritating. This is based on the logic that either the best or the worst things will grab maximum human attention. Also YouTube has unskippable ads before videos. This is also a trick to grab consumers' attention.

Another example is social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other sites are free but their design and algorithms are such that they incentivize people to spend their maximum time on these applications and sell their boredom to them. The preference of consumers to get more followers and attention of people towards their skills, hobbies or activities is what makes them spend their time on these applications. These are free but we do not realise how much we are paying them in terms of our time and energy.

The emergence of new and innovative fields like content creation and social media marketing are opening avenues for employment. Moreover, brands are paying celebrities with a high number of followers for paid promotions of their products to increase their reach and garner attention of prospective buyers. The explore section on Instagram is one of the most overwhelming features which allows the users to consume a variety of information and eventually end up scrolling for hours. Thus, we pay attention to these sites.

If we look closely, we can surely understand the dynamics of the attention economy in almost all the business models around us. Hefty discounts on Swiggy , Ola and other service apps or offering first order/ride for free are all attempts to grab the consumers attention and get some recognition

Recently Competition Commission Chairperson, Ashok Kumar Gupta in his address of the Assocham Conference pointed out that data hegemony by some digital firms may lead to the creation of the digital economy as big tech players work to capture user attention, build profiles of their choices and sell them to advertisers.

This was my attempt to grab your attention and make you realise the emergence and your contribution to the Attention Economy.

REFERENCES

https://econreview.berkeley.edu/paying-attention-the-attention-economy/

https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/digital­cos­data­hegemony­may­lead­to­attention­economysays­competition­comm­chief/86473904