What if the very thing that shapes your reality has become the most valuable commodity in the modern economy? Attention isn’t just something we occasionally lose to our phones or social media—it’s the fundamental substance of our conscious experience, and it’s being systematically extracted and monetized by powerful digital platforms.
By understanding how both voluntary and involuntary attention systems work, we can better grasp why maintaining focus has become increasingly difficult in our hyperconnected world.
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What Attention Is (and Isn’t)
Every moment of every day, you’re paying attention to something. Whether you’re reading a book, listening to music, having a conversation, or simply daydreaming, your mind is constantly directing your focus toward specific information while filtering out everything else. Hayes argues that attention is not merely something we do: It’s the fundamental substance of our conscious experience. Without attention, there would be no awareness, no thought, no perception of the world around us.
| The Psychology of Attention What does attention mean in psychological terms? Psychologists have long described attention as something you do deliberately. In other words, attention is your choice to concentrate on a single task or experience at any given moment. However, in Attention Span, Gloria Mark explains that in practice, attention is much more complicated. While you can direct some of your attention by choice, much of your attention is out of your conscious control. |
This mental capacity operates through two mechanisms: voluntary and involuntary. (Shortform note: Mark calls this “executive” and “automatic” attention.) Voluntary attention is the conscious, intentional focusing of our minds on a particular task or object. When you deliberately concentrate on reading while ignoring background noise, you’re exercising voluntary attention. This type of focus requires effort and cognitive control, since you have to actively suppress distractions and maintain concentration on your chosen target.
Involuntary attention, by contrast, operates automatically, and you can’t consciously control it. When a loud crash occurs nearby, your attention immediately shifts to the sound regardless of your intentions. Hayes explains that this involuntary response evolved as a survival mechanism: Our ancestors needed to quickly detect potential threats or opportunities in their environment. Bright flashes, sudden movements, unexpected sounds, and perceived dangers all trigger involuntary attention shifts that bypass our conscious will entirely.
(Shortform note: Hayes’s distinction between voluntary and involuntary attention aligns with research on what scientists call “endogenous” (internally directed) and “exogenous” (externally triggered) attention. Studies show that when exogenous attention is triggered—perhaps by a sudden notification—the interruption interferes with our ability to maintain endogenous focus. The interference occurs because both systems rely on shared neural pathways in the brain. In other words, we have trouble maintaining voluntary focus while being exposed to involuntary attention triggers because they make competing demands for the same cognitive resources.)
The interplay between these two systems allows humans to balance focused concentration on a specific task with awareness of important changes in our surroundings. This attention mobility—our ability to shift focus rapidly between different stimuli and mental processes—proved crucial for our ancestors’ survival and remains essential for navigating complex modern environments. It lets you engage with relevant information while maintaining awareness of what’s around you—like reading a news article on your phone while walking down the street. However, this same mobility makes you vulnerable to exploitation by forces designed to capture your attention and turn it into an extractable resource.
(Shortform note: Whether conscious or not, attention-switching burdens us with decisions. In The Organized Mind, Daniel J. Levitin argues that when you’re bombarded by information, as we all are in the digital world, you have to constantly decide what to pay attention to, which can be exhausting even if most decisions are trivial—such as whether to read an email now or later. Levitin explains that your brain can only make a limited number of decisions per day, it doesn’t distinguish between their importance, and it spends the same amount of energy on each one. This leads to decision fatigue, which may not sap your attention but hampers how much you can control it.)
| The Four Modes of Attention Productivity experts talk about focus as an “all or nothing” condition—you’re either paying uninterrupted attention, or you’re not. However, Gloria Mark insists that this is an oversimplification. Her research shows that we experience four distinct modes of attention—concentration, mechanical attention, apathy, and irritation. Which state you’re in is determined by how difficult and engrossing what you’re doing is. 1. Concentration: Mark says we’re most able to focus our attention when what we’re doing is both difficult and engrossing, such as editing a novel, designing a business plan, coding a new piece of software, or distilling reams of data into a presentation. 2. Mechanical: Mark describes mechanical attention as the mental state that occurs when what we’re doing is engrossing but easy, as when doing routine work such as data entry, collating files, or checking inventory. This attention state also occurs when performing “mindless” activities like checking social media or rewatching your favorite movies. 3. Apathy: This occurs when what you’re doing is neither difficult nor engrossing, such as sitting through an endless presentation. It also includes “idle time” in which there isn’t pressing work to do at all. 4. Irritation: Mark’s fourth attention category occurs when what you’re doing is difficult but not engrossing, such as trying to clear a paper jam from a copier. |
Attention Has Become an Extractable Resource
Hayes draws a direct parallel between attention and other resources that have been commodified throughout history. Just as industrial capitalism transformed human labor into a commodity that could be bought, sold, and exploited, the digital age has transformed human attention into an extractable resource. He explains that attention, like labor, represents something intimate and essential to human experience that can be separated from the person and converted into economic value.
(Shortform note: Marx noted that capitalism alienates workers from their labor, whereas Hayes shows how digital platforms alienate us from our attention. Apple TV’s Severance literalizes the next step: Workers undergo a procedure separating their work and personal identities, alienating them from their own consciousness. Each of these stages represents a deeper psychological invasion: While factory workers could think their own thoughts at work, and attention-economy participants realize they’re distracted, Severance’s workers surrender their consciousness so completely they exist as different people at work—suggesting the endpoint of commodifying mental resources is the fracturing of human identity into economically useful fragments.)
The attention extraction process works by targeting our involuntary focus mechanisms. Tech platforms and media companies have learned to trigger the automatic responses that evolved to detect threats and opportunities—and to make these responses serve commercial purposes rather than survival. A push notification creates the same neurological urgency as a predator’s growl. An infinite scroll of content mimics the unpredictable rewards that kept our ancestors searching for food. Bright colors, rapid scene changes, and conflict-driven content all exploit the involuntary attention systems that once helped humans survive in dangerous environments.
| How Social Media Exploits Your Brain’s Survival Mechanisms Research confirms Hayes’s argument that social media companies deliberately exploit neurological systems that evolved to keep you alive, targeting the same reward pathways in your brain that respond to food, sex, and social connection. When you get a notification, your brain releases a hit of dopamine—the “feel-good” chemical—both from the actual reward (like a message) and from anticipating potential rewards (seeing the notification). Social media apps intentionally hold back notifications and then release them in batches to build anticipation. They also take advantage of how your brain naturally focuses more on negative or threatening information, which is why angry or scary content spreads faster online. These platforms also constantly ping the part of your brain that’s supposed to alert you to real dangers—except now it’s responding to trivial updates that only feel urgent. Studies show this can actually change your brain structure, shrinking the areas responsible for decision-making and self-control, and disrupting how your brain forms memories. Over time, you need to check your phone more often to get the same dopamine hit, and you feel anxious or irritated when you try to cut back. These systems essentially train your brain to respond to artificial stimuli instead of real life, undermining your ability to make conscious choices about how to spend your attention. |
Hayes explains that the extraction of our involuntary attention happens at a neurological level before our conscious minds can intervene. A flashing advertisement or breaking news alert captures our focus, and by the time we realize we’ve been distracted, our attention has already been redirected away from our chosen activities and toward profit-generating content. This differs fundamentally from traditional media consumption. When you choose to buy a newspaper or attend a movie, you decide to allocate your attention in exchange for information or entertainment. Hayes argues that modern attention extraction operates through compulsion rather than choice, using psychological manipulation to capture your focus against your will.
(Shortform note: Research suggests that what Hayes frames as involuntary “capture” of our attention may sometimes involve deliberate choices to seek emotional fulfillment that’s missing elsewhere. When people’s needs for love, belonging, and connection aren’t satisfied in their real relationships, they turn to social media and prioritize it over face-to-face interaction. While specific moments of distraction—like responding to a notification from TikTok or Facebook—can happen automatically, the broader pattern of heavy social media use can represent a deliberate strategy on many people’s part to fill real emotional voids—even if it ultimately proves ineffective at providing genuine emotional support.)
The Emergence of the Attention Economy
The transformation of attention into an extractable resource has created what Hayes calls the “attention economy,” where human focus is the most important commodity. As digital technologies made information infinitely abundant and instantly accessible, information lost its place as the scarcest, most valuable resource. Unlike information, which can be copied infinitely, attention can’t be manufactured or duplicated. Each person has a limited supply, and when one entity captures that attention, it becomes unavailable to others. Tech companies compete for these limited hours because controlling attention gives them control of the most valuable commodity in an information-rich world.
(Shortform note: The concept that information abundance creates attention scarcity isn’t new: In How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell explains that social media platforms deliberately engineer psychological states that keep us engaged, making us anxious about missing out, envious of others’ lives, and constantly distracted. Her solution is to cultivate “deep attention”—to resist manipulative content by building stronger attentional muscles. This suggests attention scarcity may be less about the limits of our cognitive capacity and more about how systems fragment our focus. Odell’s approach also highlights a key tension in Hayes’s argument: If attention can be strengthened through practice, then it may not be as nonrenewable as Hayes claims.)
Companies use a simple business model to profit from capturing and holding human attention: Platforms provide free content or services to attract users, then sell access to those users’ attention to advertisers. The more engaging the platform, the longer users stay, and the more valuable their attention becomes. This creates incentives for platforms to maximize the time you spend with them. Social media platforms have perfected this model with algorithms that analyze billions of data points about your behavior—what you click, how long you linger, when you scroll—to identify and deliver content specifically designed to exploit your particular triggers, whether those involve political anger, social comparison, fear, or curiosity.
| The Mathematical Precision Behind Attention Capture Though scrolling through a news app or spending time on TikTok might feel harmless, these casual interactions create surprisingly detailed psychological profiles through mathematical analysis. The algorithms designed to do this are simply sets of computer instructions designed to solve problems—in this case, figuring out exactly what content will keep you glued to your screen. Even if you deliberately avoid sharing personal information online, you can’t escape this data collection. Researchers have found that detailed profiles can be built from your browser settings, smartphone location data, Wi-Fi connections, online purchases, and even which apps you’ve installed. Computer programs analyze these seemingly unrelated data points to spot patterns and relationships, ultimately predicting how you’ll behave and enabling companies to influence your decisions. Platforms use mathematical techniques like k-means clustering to group you with users who have similar behaviors and preferences, analyzing patterns across millions of people to learn more about you. The scale of this data gathering is staggering: A Consumer Reports study found that an average of 2,230 different companies shared data with Facebook on each of the social network’s users, with some people’s information coming from over 7,000 companies. The resulting personalization can be unnervingly accurate. These systems track not just what you click, but how long you pause on content, where you scroll on a page, and which videos you watch all the way through. The algorithms prioritize keeping you on the platform over your well-being, potentially steering you toward increasingly extreme or emotionally charged content that triggers strong reactions—and longer viewing sessions. |
Hayes argues that the emergence of the attention economy has implications beyond individual distraction. When society’s most powerful institutions—technology companies worth trillions of dollars—have business models that depend on fragmenting human attention, the cognitive resources necessary for democracy, education, relationships, and long-term thinking come under systematic assault. He contends that the attention economy doesn’t merely compete with other economic activities; it undermines the mental foundations that make other forms of human flourishing possible.
(Shortform note: Critics contend that Hayes underestimates our agency in the attention economy. Geoff Shullenberger argues that Hayes’s concerns reflect “the crisis of the bourgeois subject,” the centuries-old problem of how we maintain autonomy in modern society. He says the truth may not be that platforms take our attention against our will, but that we want what they offer. Daniel Immerwahr notes that we show remarkable focus when binge-watching TV shows, mastering video games, or creating TikTok content. Meanwhile, complaints about attention capture often come from journalists, artists, writers, and professors, suggesting they may be anxious about losing cultural authority and facing economic competition for attention.)
Learn More About Attention Spans
To better understand attention spans and their broader context, check out Shortform’s guides to the books we’ve referenced in this article:
