The Great Attention Heist
Why our relationship with Computers and Social media has changed for the worse.
Written August 2024
I think people look at their relationship with their phones in the wrong way.
We tend to see technology as a tool that makes communication easier and gives us access to the information we need throughout the day.
We hold this rectangular box with a screen in our hands and tap it to get what we want. Essentially, we’re inputting bits of information into an input field, and the computer returns something we hope matches our expectations, depending on the structure of the software we’re using.
This is already a pretty advanced form of human-computer interaction. Just because we aren’t physically integrated with the device doesn’t mean we aren’t deeply connected to our phones. I know many people who spend 8+ hours a day on their phones. These individuals are extremely connected to technology all the time. The people worried about future technology becoming permanently integrated into our lives are overlooking the fact that this has already happened. Even when we aren't looking at them, phones are always turned on in our pockets, delivering notifications that prompt us to take them out and look at them. I've heard arguments that in the future, we'll be so heavily reliant on technology that we won't be able to turn it off. We have already passed that point. Just because we hypothetically can turn the technology off doesn't mean anything if we never have reason to do it. Its on all the time, and we rely on it all the time. We’re much further down the rabbit hole than most people realize, so I’ll try to go over the nature of all this.
When smartphones first came out, we didn’t really rely on them. There were already established ways to accomplish most tasks—people called each other on the telephone, sent physical mail, or used email if they had a computer in the office. They faxed documents, looked things up in dictionaries, or visited the library for information. The first smartphones simply took these existing methods and combined them into one device. At that time, society viewed phones as convenient all-in-one tools. Phones did all the before mentioned tasks much faster, and this was regarded as overwhelmingly positive.
However, the structure and purpose of the technology has radically shifted away from “being a tool”; this started with the rise of social media platforms around 2010. Initially, social media was great. It brought people together and allowed them to communicate with anyone they wanted. They could share ideas, experiences, pictures, and videos with each other, and it was kept running by a paid ad every once in a while to keep the site free.
Over time, the companies running these platforms began to respond to monetary incentives, like every company has done throughout history, and began altering the structure of their technology in order to maximize profit.
The internet industry has two main revenue streams: ads and subscriptions. Subscription services have a pretty high barrier to entry and high user turnover. Tech companies realized they could dramatically increase profits by offering free services that billions of people use and then injecting ads into those services. The goal of ad-based business models is to keep users on the platform as long as possible. More time on the platform means more ads can be shown, which means more money from advertisers. The business plan for all of these companies at the time was:
Increase time spent on the platform = More ads are shown = More profit.
It’s an effective business model, but it has predictably changed how people relate to their devices. Phones are no longer just tools; they are now vehicles to monetize human attention.
To maximize time spent on devices, companies use the "tool" aspect of the phone to gather data and build detailed user profiles. They use this data to develop algorithms that show personalized content to keep users engaged. Almost every social media platform includes the following features:
Endless relevant video content
Infinite scrolling
Gamification (points, badges, leaderboards)
Push notifications
Endless feedback loops
These features are specifically designed to increase the time users spend on the platform—and they work very well. You can see them in action on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Reddit, Spotify, Snapchat, TikTok, and more. These platforms are where everyone is spending the majority of their time, which is more telling about our real relationship with the technology, than what we say they purpose of it is.
All of these companies rely on advertising revenue, and they are simply responding to monetary incentives. The incentive is to maximize ad exposure, which has turned phones into attention-capturing, monetizing devices.
Looking at the world population, close to 95% of people who use the internet are using social media, meaning this affects pretty much anyone with a phone or computer. We might tell ourselves we use these platforms out of necessity—perhaps for business or to stay connected with our communities. But how accurate are those claims? In reality, we all use these features, everyone scrolls recommended content all the time. It’s always right there on the front page, trying to get us to click and start the scrolling process.
None of us use social media as a tool because it's not designed to be used as a tool.
Phones have become a prison for our attention, and the driving force behind it is advertising money.
In 2023, Alphabet/Google made $237.8 billion of its $305 billion in total revenue from advertising.
For Meta, advertising made up $131.9 billion of its $134 billion in total revenue.
Apple, even though it's primarily a product company, is seeing its largest revenue growth in the services sector. Google even pays Apple 36% of its advertising revenue from the Safari browser using their search engines. Apple also promotes advertising on its subscription services like Books, Music, Podcasts, and TV. They also take a 30% cut of revenue coming from the app store.
These numbers are pretty telling, and clearly shows where the monetary incentive really is. While we tell ourselves that phones should be tools, in reality, they now exist primarily as vehicles to increase the number of ads shown to the user.
Why is this so Important?
To predict where all this is headed, we have to look at past trends and apply them to new technologies. I often hear people say that AI large-language-models will become everything assistants. While that’s true to an extent, you have to consider the monetary incentives these companies operate on. If the advertiser-based business model persists, the goal of these AI assistant platforms will still be to increase the time we spend using them, regardless of how the hardware evolves.
If Meta’s ideal world comes to pass and we have smart glasses that are easier to use than phones, their revenue will still come from selling human attention to advertisers. This means as the new hardware becomes engrained, companies with alter the nature of the hardware to maximize advertising profit. This business model has become very harmful to humanity. The software we use has a massive impact on our societal structure. When companies treat us like commodities, we willingly become the commodities, ripe for exploitation.
I think our relationship with technology needs to fundamentally shift back to using it as a tool—a way to enhance human connection in the best possible way. I also believe what without a change in the structure of the technology, it’s nearly impossible for people force themselves to stop using the addictive features that are right in front of them. It’s not like I don’t use these platforms myself, it’s something I have to go great lengths to keep out of. Even just a few hours a week compounds into 160 hours a year, which is way too long. Some people are on these platforms a few hours a day, just imagine how many years that adds up to over the course of one’s life.
I don’t think these companies will change—they’re making too much money, and there’s no strong push-back. Big Tech will continue pushing boundaries, collecting more data, further exploiting human psychology, and our physiologic reward structures to keep us engaged for longer, and longer periods of time.
As technology improves, we’ll go deeper down this rabbit hole. I don’t know how far it will go, but hopefully, there will be government interventions like antitrust law to break up some of these monopolies. My wish is that as these companies are being broken up, a decentralized, open-source, nonprofit software could emerge—something that offers communication, content, and financial services for free, while focusing on maximizing positive human interaction and giving users control over what they see.
There are ways to minimize time spent on these platforms today. Apple offers screen time restrictions nobody uses properly. What you should really do is lock the phone down with someone else setting your password. Make sure to get all the apps you need, then disable Safari and the app store. This is the best way to get all this off your phone for starters, and you will see your screen time drop dramatically. All social media, video playing capabilities, games etc can be managed on the computer.
It's worked for me anyways.