Our limited and precious commodity, attention, is in short supply these days. It’s in short supply because there’s simply so much demand for it in today’s technological and social media world. People are becoming billionaires because of their ability to build products and services to capture our attention constantly.
We can only be aware of things when we pay attention to it, but we can also be paying attention when we are not aware. For example, think back to the time when you whipped out the phone from your pocket and start scrolling through Instagram? Probably just in your previous spare pocket of time. Like waiting for the bus, in the queue, or even just a moment of uninteresting conversation when with a group of friends. All these is due to us willingly giving away our attention to these cleverly-designed attention grabber. And they make money off it.
But what do we get out of it? Sure, we enjoy looking at nice photos. We get updated of our friends’ latest happenings. But are they truly so urgent that we need to check them so often, and at the expense of what is right in front of us? We developed habits of simply paying attention without awareness and we find it harder to pay attention on what we really want or need to. There’s a reason why it is described as ‘pay’ attention. It is a price we are paying, as it takes something else away.
To protect and develop ourselves, we need to be more stingy about giving away our attention. Stop paying out attention so cheaply. It is much easier said than done given our lives are deeply entrenched with the very same technological tools that helped us in work and life but also have features meant to distract us. It all comes back to our ability to generate self-awareness and control our actions after the initial stimulus.
On the other hand, if you are able to develop the skillset of capturing and steering people’s attention, you will likely find some semblance of success. This is the reason for the rise of mini ‘influencers’ and many of the social apps. They knowingly or unknowingly discover ways to capture your attention, especially when you are unaware. Magicians are the master of capturing and diverting your attention too. I was fascinated by magic largely because of this reason.
There is a struggle from all major corporations for our attention as they recognise it is the most precious commodity. It’s like oil but much more subtle and yet dangerous. Unlike oil however, there’s no discussion that an over-consumption of this commodity will be detrimental to us. We simply try to milk as much attention as possible from people, and many times from ourselves too.
So, what will you do with people’s attention if you are able to capture it? And what would you choose to carefully pay attention to?
My thoughts 