Facebook's Attention Economy

The usage of social media websites such as a Facebook play active roles in the lives of many and along with the use of these platforms, users also become bombarded with the attention economy that is tied to it. Through the rise of Facebook, the platform has ultimately become the ruler of the attention economy (Zahler, 2017). Not only do corporations take advantage of Facebook users through the attention economy, but each of its users become active agents in participating in it as well by the ways in which they consume and produce content. Also, through the idea first mentioned by Tristan Harris of the slot machine, it is becoming increasingly easier for corporations and social media to trap users and ultimately “hijack” their minds to keep

Over the years, Facebook has taken many different actions to sustain the attention of their users. James B. Stewart as mentioned in Zahler’s article How Facebook won the Attention Economy, that users spend approximately an hour on Facebook every day which beats the leisure time spent on other resources such as movies or television (Stewart in Zahler, 2017). Along with this, Stewart also states that Facebook’s cellphone app for iOS and Android phones “generates nearly half of all iOS traffic and a third on Android” (Zahler,

Harris says that the attention economy aims to hijack minds and is currently ruled by 4 private companies: Google, Apple, Facebook and Snapchat (Harris, Redesign the Attention Economy, 2017). Harris also adds that due to corporate interest, these companies “are designing the city around what will maximize engagement. Instead of building the city around what would most empower us to live our lives” and this shows the priorities from companies when trying to target users (Harris, Redesign the Attention Economy, 2017). Along with this, the idea of the Slot Machine contributes to the attention economy because it keeps users addicted to their phones and thus glued to the content on