Monetization

Not many people notice it, but supermarkets are designed to manipulate our attention. Aisle after aisle, shelf after shelf, everything is organized to draw your attention to the right place at the right time. Those fresh flowers and produce at the entrance are no coincidence. All those bright colors help put you in a good mood. And those roasted whole chickens near the front? They get your attention through your nose, stimulating your appetite so you shop hungry. 

Then, if you were planning to pop in just for some staple items like milk or eggs, you’ll have to walk past a plethora of temptations to get to them since they’re usually in the back. Finally, while you’re waiting in line, endless candies and tabloids are right at the eye height of their respective target audiences (kids and bored adults).

It’s all designed to increase the amount of money you spend by making you pay attention to certain items at certain moments. Would you really be interested in celebrity gossip if you weren’t waiting in line with nothing to do?

We live in an attention economy, and it’s nothing new that products are fighting for our attention. And the same subtle psychological nudges that make us choose one product over another at the supermarket also drive which digital products we use and how we use them. Often, this is what gives one product the edge over another.

Many of these psychological tricks involve manipulating a person’s attention, so let’s define more precisely what attention means. 

What exactly is attention?

The concept of attention itself is nothing new, and even the psychological definition has been around for a while. In 1890, William James published The Principles of Psychology and wrote that attention “is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what may seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. … It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.” 

Pay attention to that last bit again. The significance is that when we start paying attention to one thing, we stop paying attention to other things because we are limited in our ability to focus on sights, sounds, sensations, thoughts, etc. So we can think of attention as the limiting of focus to one thing at the expense of focusing on other things. And we should keep this in mind when thinking about what we want a user to focus on in our interface.

Attention monetization

Coca-Cola and Pepsi are notorious rivals that have been fighting over the public’s attention for decades. The war is fought via ads, commercials, supermarket placement, and even deals with fast-food chains. They do all this for one reason: to monetize your attention for profit. And they do a good job of it, too:

Internet tech companies are no different in their attempts to monetize attention. And the first step in getting our attention is to present us with compelling content. But today, the most successful apps don’t just get our attention—they hold on to it and don’t let go. The dynamics of the attention economy are such that companies are incentivized to make users spend as much time as possible on their apps, and they have the research and algorithms to make it happen. Users become addicted to the dopamine hits they get from the interactions.