Attention economics is a behaviorist arms race won by the most stimulating content

Evidence

The high-octane commercial battle for “eyeballs” that has played out across our digital ecology over the last fifteen years—call it the attention economy, or see it in the still wider frame, as “surveillance capitalism”—long ago gave rise to a demented behaviorist arms race in which only the fastest, loudest, and most explosive content can strike home and hold a fleeting moment in our consciousness. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 87

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the attention economy / surveillance capitalism referents the manifesto builds on.
• XREF: Shades of Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism framing and the ‘race to the bottom’ idea this chapter develops. — connects to: Attention operates as an addictive wealth of increasing returns — Crystal Abidin and Megan Lindsay Brown (eds.), Microcelebrity Around the Globe:…, 347; Attention functions as a currency that compounds like interest. — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 10; Self-commodification in the attention economy creates an escalating spiral of exposure and attack — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 207 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Attention operates as an addictive wealth of increasing returns — Crystal Abidin and Megan Lindsay Brown (eds.), Microcelebrity Around the Globe:…, 347; Attention functions as a currency that compounds like interest. — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 10; Self-commodification in the attention economy creates an escalating spiral of exposure and attack — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 207 (+1 more)