Paying Too Much Attention
The world craves attention. The expected exchange is that by giving yours, you’ll get some in return, and maybe you will—but is it a good exchange?Your attention is incredibly desirable. Your family wants it. Your boss wants it. Your phone wants it. Marketers not only know this, but constantly strategize ways to get more of it. Whenever you see anything about “engagement,” they’re talking about getting your attention. Social media is designed to be addictive because your attention is the goal. They treat it as a commodity.
So the question is, why don’t you value it at least as much?
We tend to forget that we are learning constantly from everything that catches our attention, whether it’s the most recent royal pregnancy, or news of a natural disaster, or a smack-down between rap divas. That’s ok, we say to ourselves, we can multitask. Our ability to do just that got us a job, right? Yeah, no, it’s a myth. Our lovely human brains, which can do so very much, cannot multitask. They can switch rapidly from one task to another, sure, but doing it makes us worse at both tasks.
We’re left exhausted, stuck, and burnt out. For whatever reason, we completely forget how we spent our attention, and instead turn inward critically, asking ourselves why we are such losers, why we can’t get ahead, why we’ve misspent our potential. We generate what feel like answers, like we’re unlucky, or we’re not enough, or it’s someone else’s fault, and ours for letting them put us here. We put our attention into escape, circling back to social media, and other addictive behavior. Your attention is value, and value is mojo. The good news (for you, not for social media or marketers) is that you can learn to get your mojo back by paying attention to yourself. Build in quiet time, and unplug. Learn mindfulness. Pause when people and things demand your attention, and understand that you can say no. You’ll get better with practice. But start by asking yourself, if your attention is so precious that companies are making billions of dollars every year, why are we unwilling to get in on that investment?
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