Attention as an Economic Resource

Could we be more productive if we could focus on tasks longer without needing to take breaks?  Inevitably!  However, our attention spans are finite, and arguably diminishing due to the proliferation of short-form media.  Today’s workers often crave digital distraction, which they can get from their smartphones.  This makes engagement crucial, with everyone from educators to sellers to employers fighting to capture attention spans.

Attention as a Factor of Production

Today, simply being at a job site is no guarantee of generating [quality] output.  Attention is becoming a valuable, scarce factor of production, similar to entrepreneurial ability.  While education is often seen as a predictor of entrepreneurial ability, experience and work history can be seen as predictors of attention span.  Employers who want high-quality workers can no longer rely on physical presence or educational attainment; they must seek a degree of discipline and grit.

Why is Attention so Finite?

Historically, technological advancement was considered an automatic booster of productivity.  With new tech, workers could generate more output, presumably at equal or higher quality than before.  Over the past two decades, however, the rapid proliferation of smartphones and wireless Internet have allowed virtually all workers to mentally “check out” and spend hours scrolling and swiping instead of completing tasks.  Many of today’s new Gen Z workers have been able to lose themselves in their smartphones since elementary school, resulting in deep-seated Internet addictions.

Technology “Steals” Productivity

Prior to universal WiFi, most tech advancements were tools designed to improve worker efficiency.  Today, many tech advancements are designed to draw consumers’ attention through entertainment.  Prior to the early 21st century, workers had to leave work to seek most entertainment.  Now, all entertainment is available in their pockets.  An employee no longer has to clock out or wait until the close of business to watch television or play video games.  And, of course, these Internet platforms are designed to be addictive.

Remote Work and Overemployment

Also prior to the omnipresent Internet, workers tended to be limited to one job at a time.  Remote work capability removes that constraint, allowing digitally-savvy workers to multitask among online jobs, perhaps to the detriment of quality.  These workers can also search for new online work opportunities, distracting themselves from trying to build skill at their current job.  An increase in employee turnover due to an all-digital job market has likely led to a decrease in skill-building, with employees finding more reward by jumping from job-to-job than “working their way up” within one organization.

Attention as Revenue

For sellers, attention is also crucial.  With the Internet, sellers can find customers virtually across the globe, allowing for massive markets.  However, these customers are being bombarded by similar substitutes, “softening” demand for any individual product or brand.  Finding ways to successfully advertise to this massive market of consumers can be the difference between profitability and irrelevance - whichever seller catches viewers’ attention can sell thousands of units of a product that is almost identical to those made by rival firms.

Vibes and Attention over Research

One reason that capturing customers’ attention is so vital is the increasing difficulty in appealing to consumers based on quality.  Thanks to bots and AI, almost any seller can create hundreds of fake “customer reviews” that praise their products.  As a result, even discerning customers do not know which brands to trust.  They may come to assume that all products in a category are similar due to the myriad of complimentary reviews of each brand.  Ultimately, they will then pick the one that captures their attention the most, ignoring minute differences in reviews due to their unreliability.

Effects of Attention as an Economic Resource

Employers

Having to vie for employees’ attention can be costly.  Some employers may try to entice workers through perks, ranging from fun team-building exercises to office amenities, while other employers may try to force attention by using productivity tracking measures.  These efforts may be unsuccessful, resulting in higher costs of production without return on investment.

Employers may have better success by consciously creating systems to reward and promote workers, giving them incentives to improve their performance and invest in the firm’s success.  For example, clearly delineating steps and timelines to receive promotions and pay raises may create strong buy-in from workers.  When there are countless digital distractions, the old adage of “work hard and someday you might get promoted” is no longer very effective.  Similar to progress bars on apps, workers want easy-to-understand metrics of their own performance and how close they are to reaching the next milestone.

Gamification of Labor: a Long-Term Solution?

While progress bars and performance checkpoints may not exactly be exciting, they can hold workers’ attention through the psychological principles of gamification.  Firms may have to put in extra work to create these user-friendly performance metrics, resulting in higher costs, but could benefit from reduced turnover and greater productivity.  Many workers may want to improve their skills, but mentally check out when they struggle to see a clear path forward.  Companies that create the most effective labor gamification systems will likely attract and retain the best labor in the coming years.

Sellers and Gamification

Similarly, sellers will have to create systems to attract and hold user attention.  Just like workers, consumers can respond to gamification with increased engagement.  Apps and websites with easy-to-use reward systems can entice consumers to buy more frequently, eagerly accruing reward points.  Some customers may actually spend more money than before in order to “win” rewards, being so attracted to the prospect of getting a “deal” that they do not realize they could have purchased the reward for less money than it cost them to earn the reward points!

Overconsumption due to Sunk Cost Fallacy

Customers’ pursuit of reward points may lead to overconsumption of lower-quality goods, resulting in waste.  These consumers may not realize that “winning” the reward is not realistic and spend more money than expected on the goods or services needed to accrue reward points.  It is similar to people playing the lottery and not realizing how infinitesimally small the chances of winning are.  Regular lottery players often overestimate their chance of winning, and consumers who are susceptible to gamification may overestimate how easy it is to “win” rewards for their spending…resulting in overspending and overconsumption.

Some of these customers may fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy, which occurs when people incorrectly view already-spent and unrecoverable resources as an investment. They may continue to buy goods through their rewards programs because they assume they have "invested" so much already that the "good rewards" are almost won. In reality, the rewards programs are not linear and require exponential increases in purchases, resulting in few customers ever winning the most desirable rewards.