Attention now functions like money as a common metric for cultural value.

Evidence

While we should not take techno-optimistic claims about the economically transformative ascendance of attention at face value, these commentators point to a more abstract sense in which attention has arguably taken on the role of money: as a general-purpose device for cultural commensuration, a common denominator to which all societal problems can be reduced (cf. Maurer 2006). — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 18

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that attention works as a general commensuration device—reducing all problems to units of attention—is a genuinely paradigm-shifting framing of digital attention.
• XREF: Echoes the anthropology of money (Maurer) and the idea of money as a measure of everything—attentions as our era’s universal denominator. — connects to: Scarcity has shifted from production of goods to consumption of attention. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 41; Public attention is a self-reproducing form of value convertible into fame — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 6; Attention functions as a currency that compounds like interest. — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 10 (+14 more)

Related

• Attention functions as a currency that compounds like interest. (similarity 0.90)
• Attention operates as a form of capital that accrues interest and concentrates inequality. (similarity 0.88)
• Attention functions as currency in prestige-differentiated social groups (similarity 0.87)
• Attention cannot function as currency without homogenizing measurement (similarity 0.87)
• Attention only becomes convertible capital through homogenizing measurement devices (similarity 0.87)
• Attention functions as convertible capital that individuals and institutions can bank and trade (similarity 0.87)
• Attention is a currency that is always being spent and cannot be saved (similarity 0.87)
• By the mid-2010s attention was openly proclaimed the universal currency across industries (similarity 0.87)
• Attention has emerged as a site of political, economic, and moral struggle (similarity 0.86)
• Fame now precedes wealth in the attention economy (similarity 0.85)
• Attention merchants now shape the course of human lives and futures (similarity 0.85)
• Attention operates as an addictive wealth of increasing returns (similarity 0.85)
• Attention inequality forms a distinct axis of class alongside money (similarity 0.85)
• Measuring attention as data enables treating it as a monetizable resource (similarity 0.84)
• Attention functions as a political economy embedded in specific temporal contexts (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Attention can be quantitatively measured and thereby bought and sold. #expands (0.85) — The Friends of Attention, Attensity!, 121
• Attention functions as convertible capital that individuals and institutions can bank and trade #expands (0.85) — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 14
• Measuring attention as data enables treating it as a monetizable resource #qualifies (0.80)
• Financialization colonizes culture by fusing economic price with social value #expands (0.78) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 561
• Attention inequality forms a distinct axis of class alongside money #expands (0.75) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 183
• Fame has become a purchased product of the cultural system. #qualifies (0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 114
• Attention has emerged as a site of political, economic, and moral struggle #expands (0.75) — Annual Review of Anthropology contributors (⚠ verify author line), The Political Economy of Attention, 10
• Attention works as a needle weaving global links at the price of inequality #exemplifies (0.72) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 560