The attention economy is the idea that human attention is a scarce resource — and that digital platforms, media, and advertising are all competing to capture and monetize it.
The term was coined by economist Michael H. Goldhaber in his 1997 essay The Attention Economy and the Net:
“A conversation is primarily an exchange of attention.”
The logic: in a world of information abundance, what becomes scarce is not content but the attention needed to process it. Platforms optimize for capturing that attention, often at the cost of depth, rest, and genuine connection.
Related concepts
- resistance-in-place — Jenny Odell’s response: refusing to be optimized
- post-individualism — how the web reshaped the self alongside attention
- How to Do Nothing - Resisting the Attention Economy — the key book on this
Related seeds
- chrononormativity — both are about systems that synchronize and discipline us