Attention is a currency that is always being spent and cannot be saved

Evidence

But our capacity to ignore is limited by another fact: we are always paying attention to something. If we think of attention as a resource, or even a kind of currency, we must allow that it is always, necessarily, being “spent.” There is no saving it for later. The question is always, what shall I pay attention to? Our brains answer this question with varying degrees of volition, from “shhh—I’m reading this” to letting our minds wander in the direction of whatever might draw it in, whether in the corner of our screen or along some road we are walking. That is where the attention merchant makes his opportunity. But to succeed he must motivate us to withdraw our attention from where it is and surrender it to something else. It needn’t be a thoughtful calculation. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 63

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core ‘attention as currency’ framing that the entire book’s concept of attention merchants depends on.
• ADDENDUM: Provides the foundational mechanism for how attention is captured, relevant to all three prior articles on infrastructure, moral panics, and sacrifice as systems of capture.
• XREF: connects to: Attention always responds to something else and never rests still.; By 2014 attention had become an accepted currency itself, often paid instead of money — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1049; Attention exceeds any measurable property, so exchanging it for money always entails loss. — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!: A Manifesto of the…, 248 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Attention exceeds any measurable property, so exchanging it for money always entails loss. #expands (0.82) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 248
• Attention functions as a currency that compounds like interest. #contradicts (0.82) — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 10
• Attention functions as convertible capital that individuals and institutions can bank and trade #contradicts (0.80) — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 14
• Attention now functions like money as a common metric for cultural value. #contradicts (0.80) — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 18
• Attention cannot function as currency without homogenizing measurement #qualifies (0.75) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 163
• Measuring attention as data enables treating it as a monetizable resource #qualifies (0.72)