Attentional Asymmetry
When I use the word attention, and for the sake of this article, let’s confine ourselves to the attentional economy of online media — I’m talking about an asymmetry between creators and consumers.
Technology has lowered the barrier to entry for any content creator who feels they have something of value to communicate with the world. Whether you think you’re funny enough to upload a clip to TikTok, or you have financial advice on the next hottest cryptocurrency to invest in, all you need to share your content with the world is a camera and an internet connection.
It has never been easier to become the main character in your own movie, and the internet provides a platform that gives a voice to hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. One of the main disadvantages of the attention economy is the title of this article — attentional asymmetry. Allow me to explain:
When someone creates a piece of content and shares it online, it requires a certain amount of resources (time and attention) to do so. Because this piece of content can reach millions of people, the payoff can be huge relative to the amount of work initially invested.
Writers principally have two goals in mind when they publish a book: 1) to make enough revenue from their book sales to compensate for the amount of time/energy/money that they invested in writing the book, and 2) to be able to convince/persuade their audience or at least capture their attention.
Writing a book has been the most traditional form of asymmetric information distribution for hundreds of years, assuming your book is at least somewhat successful. By contrast, online media makes it much easier both for viewers to consume condensed pieces of information, and for creators to publish something without having to write an entire book about it. The transaction rate has never been higher in the course of human history.
Technology mitigates ‘skin in the game’, a term coined by Nassim Taleb to refer to the amount of risk someone is willing to take for a payoff, by lowering the consequences of creating a bad piece of media. This allows people with no industry experience to market themselves as Gurus, or even plagiarize content from other sources for their own financial benefits.
Subsequently, the amount of time/attention spent on online information (think Instagram posts, YouTube videos, Twitter etc.) is asymmetrical between creators and consumers. That is to say, creators can create a Tweet or a YouTube video and then profit off of views or monetary value from ad revenue. Someone who is watching a video usually gets no payoff besides killing time and relieving their boredom.
The key point here lies in why most people use social media, and what types of content they view online.
Factoring in Boredom
It would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone was purely interested in becoming smarter and therefore spent their time online watching informational documentaries or reading books and articles on a subject matter that interested them in particular.
The problem is that (I have no data on this, but I would wager that it is true) the majority of times people reach for their phones, they do so because they are bored. Indeed, this is more a psychological question rather than a technological one. Whether they’re at a job they hate, in a boring class at university, or even stuck at a red light, people impulsively reach for their phones as soon as they feel even a semblance of boredom.
Over the past week, I have been without a SIM card due to moving to a new country. I’ve instinctively reached for my phone when I’m waiting in public even though I know I have no cellphone service where I am. Every time I remind myself that I can’t check Google Maps or see who has messaged me. Nevertheless, I go back to the same implicit behavior every time, because the habit of checking my phone is so deeply ingrained in my brain.
The barrier between you and unlimited amounts of information available at your fingertips has never been lower. Unfortunately, the reason people consume online information is mostly to kill the uncomfortable feeling of boredom, rather than to watch or read something truly informative. This means darting haphazardly between a sequence of incoherent content that can drone on for hours.
Attentional asymmetry is particularly relevant when it comes to people who are addicted to entertainment — something I referred to in a previous blog post as information addiction. Consumers who are killing their boredom with educational addiction are losing much more time than creators who focus on putting out the next video.
Take the basic premise as follows:
Everyone who watches YouTube videos uses YouTube, but not everyone who uses YouTube watches YouTube videos.
Someone who makes videos doesn’t necessarily need to watch other people’s videos to engage with the platform, just like someone who directs movies doesn’t need to watch other people’s films to be a director (although it helps). Disproportionately, people who watch videos spend more time doing so than the people creating the videos. This results in an imbalance between doing something creative, like making a YouTube video or writing a blog, and being someone who watches videos all the time.
Because of the way that most people engage with content online, they fall into a cycle of information addiction. That is to say that every time they experience an uncomfortable feeling of boredom, they reach for their phone, almost unconsciously, in an attempt to relieve the uncomfortable feeling of anxiety or boredom that they may be feeling. This is what Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscientist specializing in technology addiction, refers to in his information-foraging model; our time spent in one patch of information is shortened by the anticipation that the next patch will yield more useful information.
The anticipation of the next YouTube video in the recommended tab, or the next Instagram reel you are about to watch, releases more dopamine than watching the current video itself. In the same way, somebody who buys a new car hedonically adapts so that the excitement moments before buying the car diminishes quickly after having bought it.
The brain works in interesting ways, and the most effective way to counteract attentional asymmetry is to notice an addictive impulse the moment the urge arises. Techniques like mindfulness help us notice urges as they arise. There are plenty of authors out there who write about how to use mindfulness to combat addiction, such as Nir Eyal and Sam Harris to name a few.
Like Skinner’s pigeons, we implicitly reach for our phones when we experience boredom. Awareness is the first step to overcoming the unconscious behaviors that drive social media addiction, and mindfulness practices improve our awareness.