The Attention Economy is Getting Crowded!

Call me old fashioned, but sometimes it feels like there's an air of desperation to this so-called attention economy that leaves the whole scene feeling like an ocean of deception.

Earlier today I was going to read a story that caught my attention, because it sounded interesting, and I thought maybe this was something of a noteworthy news item. But all it really turnef out to be was somebody writing it up like it was a news item while regurgitating something that happened 13 years ago.

Have we really reached the point where there are so many people clamoring for attention trying to share something that what's currently going on, but what people are currently thinking is insufficient to feed the demand?

I've noticed this is a bit of an increasing and more commonplace trend, because I find myself regularly looking online for interesting articles to read and I have grown aware of how often I end up back at a piece of old news being retold for the 43rd time.

Which takes me back to something that seemed to be true back in the days of regular news printing - even radio news - which was the relationship between what we might call "signal" and "noise." The noise level seems to be rising out of control, and at an alarming rate!

So why don't I just click past the noise and stop complaining?

In essence, because my time is being wasted. 20 years ago my time was being wasted by early search engines because they didn't have algorithms to sort out so-called link farms from actual content. Now, but just many years later, and it seems like more and more people are trying to capitalize on yesterday's news as a form of clickbait.

I just don't have that much time on my hands!

But perhaps what takes the whole thing a step further is the fact that it leaves me with a difficult choice... and I can't believe that I'm actually alone in feeling this.

That "choice" is that I get closer to a sense of frustration because I have to either choose to be not informed as opposed to trying to stay informed because it takes too much time effort and energy to be informed.

I suppose conspiracy theorists would love to jump all over that one and say that "they" - whoever they might be - are succeeding with their nefarious plans to turn us all into idiots!

Maybe I'm overly naive but I don't really think that's what's going on here.

More likely, we just live in a world where so many are trying to profit from being "Brand Me" that there just isn't enough original and new ideas to go around.

Which is rather sad...

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

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Created at 2024-07-10 01:18 PDT
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