Not long ago I gave up telling stories in class. Story telling used to be a great way to provide examples, build relationships, or to challenge student thinking. In recent years however, the constant interruption and questions has made it so telling stories isn’t worth it. Zoom teaching put the final nail into my story telling, which sucks. I really thought that stories helped build relationships with students. These days not too many people have the attention span to listen to a story. It bums me out a bit, but I get it - the classroom has changed and I have to make some changes as well.
Lately I’ve wrestled with an idea that compares the current distracted faux connected culture we live in to the dot com bubble bursting back in the day and how the overinflation of hollow or superficial interactions have led and will lead to a social recession. Yes that does seem like the idea of a retro grouch who never jumped on the socials, but so many of my students and friends have over-invested in the look at me world of social media or have allowed doom scrolling to reduce them to a paralyzed shell of their former selves. While doing some exploring I came across an op-ed piece in The New York Times (Warsel, 2.4.21) in which the author described how his brain had been hijacked by information. Over-stimulus made it so he had trouble focusing on his day to day tasks. The author realized that pretending to multitask or his distraction reflected his anxiety or inability to allocate attention. This distraction represented a search for attention and uncertainty around when to apply his limited attention. Many people have struggled with similar issues and Warzel makes clear that all of this is due to the fact that our lives are dominated by the Attention Economy. This idea connected with my original idea and I momentarily considered myself a genius.
Attention drives us (as individuals and groups) towards, what I consider, a trinity of human behavior - power, control, and fear. We have a reciprocal and transactional relationship with attention. Not only do we arrange our behavior to claim attention by putting things out there, but we receive and must decide how to direct our attention. Others put messages out (to get attention) and that messaging impacts the behavior of their audience. Individuals behave in ways that get them attention while simultaneously deciding what to attend to while processing incoming stimuli. Multitasking is really just a nice way to frame an inability to focus. With all this going on, no wonder people have trouble focusing.
The emergence of the Attention Economy can be traced to the early 90s when several forces emerged that would change the framework of many lives. Perhaps the clearest sign of this shift was the emergence of cable news and the purchase of media outlets by large corporations. This new media focused on getting viewers for advertisers. This required getting and holding peoples’ attention and diluting the quality of information provided to the viewer. In the late 90s Michael Goldhaber applied the Attention Economy to emerging trends and technologies to predict the many systems that shape the way we live our lives. Goldhaber did not coin the idea of the Attention Economy. Herbert Swan created the term to describe how attention was not only a finite resource for individuals but was also a currency and a path for individuals or groups to gain power. Goldhaber outlined how the internet would transform how people lived, shopped, and interacted. His assertions described how online living would reshape politics and advertising as well as how the rise of reality television and influencers would change our concept of celebrity. This transformation, exacerbated by social and economic technologies, has destabilized individuals with a constant bombardment of information, unrelenting pressure to keep up with “the Jones,” and the ever widening schism between friends and followers. I have to wonder if the Show versus Substance question is an extension of the Attention Economy. Or, more broadly perhaps, I would like to examine how the Attention Economy has impacted education and how teachers can address teaching and learning within this system.
To deconstruct the Attention Economy we have to begin with the idea that many people in America cannot escape this phenomena. The layers of attention swirling around us shape the context and situations of our lives. Individuals now seem to prefer to connect with attention than other people. This goes way beyond the notion of information overload. The economics of attention refer to the idea that attention is a finite resource. The human brain can only attend to a limited amount of stimuli and as such people must make decisions as to how they use their resources. As a commodity, people buy and sell attention everyday much like they trade stocks, etc. on Wall St. Profiting from this economy requires a relentless effort to achieve marginal gains. Attention grabbing… attention seeking… attention inequalities shape the dynamics of attention in our daily lives.
Let’s start by looking at how the Attention Economy has impacted four areas - celebrity, social media, politics, and culminations. I have recently weaned myself off of US Weekly magazines. How I got hooked on that magazine is a story for another day (but it does involve a sauna and some hairy old men). For the past ten years or so I noticed that I know fewer and fewer celebrities in my US Weeklies. My students would often be able to fill me in on what I was missing. However, more and more I noticed that the idea of celebrity has changed. It seems that these days celebrity status goes to people whose only claim to fame is extensive and effective marketing. Initially this shift began with reality television ‘stars,’ but now includes a wider range of folks from various realms of the online world. Instead of developing talent, people trying to crack into the entertainment industry now find new ways to market themselves to get the attention of industry gatekeepers.
Then we have social media as a driver of the Attention Economy. Full disclosure I do not use the socials. This is not me bashing social media, just connecting the socials to the Attention Economy. Going viral = attention gold mine… You Tube, Instagram, and Tik Tok (and all those in between) = look at me attention… Click bait = read me read me read me! The first time I had a student “addicted” to social media happened in 2004. Next came conversations with students around if followers equaled friends. After that classroom discussions focused on if you were really friends with people who you only interacted with online. This was soon followed by student distress around issues of self related to social. These distress around issues of self was brought on by students comparing themselves to their peers (as well as influencers) online. NOTE: Influencer is another symptom of the Attention Economy. This layer within the Attention Economy around social media, from my perspective, has had three problematic influences: superficial interactions, faux friends, and inflated sense of self. It has also brought about the unwelcome return of self esteem pedalers. Interactions and connections online represent the most minimal level of social engagement. Liking a photo and a quick comment fills someone’s need for attention or social connection. While this is not an illusion like TSA’s performance of airport safety, these connections reflect the bare minimum of human interaction. And yet now, some hold this up as the gold standard of human engagement. All of this has led to some individuals having an overinflated sense of self - a house of cards built on attention and ego that crumbles with the slightest breeze from the Me versus You comparisons. Of course, we haven’t even begun to discuss the algorithmic nature of curated feeds and whether individuals are the consumer or product within the social media worlds.
The single term of the 45th president showed us the extremes of politics in the Attention Economy. Such politics represent a “getting attention instead of actually doing something” model of leadership. Political media used to be dominated by sound bites, now politicians can just throw something out on Twitter and call it good. The emphasis on or need for attention in politics can also be seen in the fact that several new representatives (hello GA and NC) set up their communication teams immediately and have yet to establish policy teams. Goldhaber warned way back when that politics in the Attention Economy would devolve. Instead of “nuanced policy discussions” overly simple slogans and messaging would dominate political discourse. This has come to fruition. Political leaders feel the need now to fight for their share of attention pie to remain relevant and in office. This has resulted in some individuals spewing crazy things online - the more extreme your post, the more attention one receives. Sure some of those individuals don’t really believe all of what they post, but words matter. Unfortunately this slippery slope has resulted in numerous problems as many constituents consume, believe, and sometimes act on those extreme views.
Now, let us turn our attention to education within the Attention Economy. In terms of education the Attention Economy has impacted education in two ways. First, the practice of teaching has been impacted. Second, how students learn has changed in the Attention Economy. I am not even going to get into the teacher at school who puts more effort into curating their Instagram feed about their teaching than their actual teaching (pretty sure every school has that teacher). Students often bring their social media behavior into the classroom. Media shapes classroom interactions and learning on several levels. Reality TV, YouTube, and Twitch also impact their interactions in the classroom. Let’s face it, if they have to choose how to allot their limited attention resources between something cool they streamed versus understanding the fundamental principles of Jacksonian Democracy, most students will not put their resources into their schoolwork. Students will also mimic what they see in popular media - clothes, interests, and behavior. Students also emulate the behavior of media influencers or personalities, and politicians by spewing out attention grabbing statements in class and in the halls. Educators can address these changes or file this behavior under “damn kids.”
In my mind, the shift towards the Attention Economy in education began in the early 2000s. This was when conversations around Show versus Substance (SvS) infiltrated my faculty meetings. I define SvS as an effort to wow parents and the outside world with things that look cool but that only skim the surface of understanding. Part of me wants to lay some blame on Bill Nye the Science Guy who brought edutainment to new heights and killed science for many students (science sucks if your teacher can’t do all that cool stuff, right?). Unfortunately Show versus Substance was just the beginning. Now we have to consider how to maximize the knowledge constructed within the Attention Economy.
Educators have to, once again, rethink what and how to teach to adjust our methods to meet the needs of individuals who do not know how to or what to focus on in their studies. It seems the first place to start would be with teaching individuals to develop their attention economics skills. This isn’t so different from teaching people to be better consumers of information. Goldhaber suggests that people become intentional and focused on what they pay attention to every day. He suggests people pay attention to who is generating the material that attracts their attention. Next, individuals must examine how their attention is being manipulated by a variety of sources. This is closely related to questioning who is curating the information you see or how your feeds are being curated by outside forces. Last, he recommends people take a hard look at what they value and allot their attention accordingly.
Teachers have a decision to make. Do we give into the algorithmic forces of the Attention Economy and provide quick and shallow curriculum that attracts the attention of our students? Do we continue with material that attracts the attention of only a few students? Or, do we rethink things to reconstruct teaching and learning to maximize students experiences despite the Attention Economy?
Things have changed in the last 20 years. Technology has reconstructed how we live, how we process information, and how we connect (or don’t) connect the dots moment to moment. The grown ups always question or blame youth, but these days adults rarely do any better in terms of practicing smarts and focus. Back in the day if someone spewed hollow bravado we laughed and dropped reality in their laps. Lately, when someone talks big and spews nonsense we reply by saying “Yes, Mr. Trump.” If the last two decades did not make it clear, the last four years should have driven home the fact that our world runs on Show not Substance. The quest for and rationing of attention dictates how the game is played these days in politics, celebrity, and education. Hate the game. Welcome to the Attention Economy.