Your Attention Please

In the new AI economy one thing that is not going to be scarce, is attention. This is actually a boon to you, if you happen to be a social network. If you consider that many more people are going to be unemployed in the very near future, then that just creates more people that have extra attention to give to an algorithm that is designed to capture it, and make the most $ off of that attention as possible.

The Washington Post has a great post on how TikTok keeps its using wasting hours a day on its platform. (Free with email signup, just unsubscribe after).

Here are a few things that stood out. Heavy users spend up to 10 hours on TikTok each day!!! The app is literally designed to take away your self control and it does this very, very effectively.

A short clip from the article states this directly.

Social media apps have zero benefit to your life. At one time many years ago it could be argued that they helped us connect with friends and family. That is no longer an argument that can be made. They divide us and steal our time and attention all while slowing diminishing our self control.

And that's without taking into account the awful content that they expose us to and the psyop's that are performed on us while we are giving them our attention.

If you are already caught in their attention trap then an escape is possible. Late last year, pre and post election time, I started using X (twitter). After a few months I noticed that my weekly screen time reports from my phone had more than doubled. I was caught in their trap!

The solution is simple. DELETE the app(s) off of your phone. You don't need to delete your account, just remove the apps from your phone. If you really have some time to kill then you can log on from your computer. The mindless scrolling is less addictive there.

Delete them from your phone. Do it now. Your mind and spirit will thank you.

If you want to build a community or business then the only way to generate long term value is to build a Youtube channel or a Podcast, in my opinion. You don't need social media. If you want to reach social media users (even your friends) then you have to do that via paid ads. The algorithm doesn't give away attention for free and neither should you.