I recently listened to this podcast conversation with Kyla Scanlon and Ezra Klein in part on “the attention economy,” and while I had heard that term before, I feel like I had an ah-hah moment while listening. The point that got through to me is that capturing attention might matter more than the other, traditional sources of influence - things like money, or one’s position or role. To play this out, a person on TikTok could capture more attention (and in turn have more influence) than, say, incumbent politicians, large companies, and, yeah, academics like me.
This got me to reflect somewhat on where I stand in the “attention economy.” I used to be a heavy user of social media, especially Twitter (X). I loved it; I used it daily; I felt like I could get real things done through my involvement there. As one of many examples, I met the authors of the product I’m perhaps best known for in academia, the book Data Science in Education Using R, through — you guessed it — Twitter. That story is told in the preface of that book.
I gave up Twitter more than two years ago. I got sick of it; tired of it; my ah-hah moment was feeling like I wanted to publish papers to share them on Twitter, not because of the intrinsic value of that work, or the long-term contributions to knowledge — to share it on social media. I gave it up the only way that I thought would work, whole cloth. I haven’t been on since. I still have more than 2,000 followers, I guess, though I don’t use it, and so it doesn’t matter - truly. I feel I can’t use it - it became addictive.
And so I have lost some degree of an ability to share and influence, and that makes me reflective. I get it when people say they cannot not be on social media. I felt like I was in a place in life in which the costs (to my attention, focus, and well-being) outweighed the benefits, but I often miss the ability to learn and share with others from around the world. It was cool.
And, so I resist the attention economy in this way. I don’t want to be a luddite or to foreclose professional or other opportunities due to stubbornness, but I also continue to see the costs of social media — the addictiveness, the superficialness, the petty and insular arguments — while I think of the benefits — the connections, the friendships, the learning. I’d be curious to hear how others navigate this space in a thoughtful way.
Some of the best thoughts on this topic come from Seth Werkheiser at https://socialmediaescapeclub.substack.com/.
Like you, I felt I couldn't live without it. And, as Millennials who grew up "live" as this tech was being developed and promoted as a means of connecting the world, it's innate in us to turn to social channels. (Our colleague, Matt Pittman at UT, may have very good thoughts on this by the way; he's the man behind the staged viral UT TikTok moments). But the tech companies, as companies do, once confident they had an addicted and loyal userbase, started messing with us, and it's not the same. We've been duped by the algorithms. We live in echo chambers.
I have FOMO largely because of the stories of Great Successes made via social media. Many writers owe their fame to a viral post. But these are needles in the haystack, really. I don't think the addiction is worth it.
I try to measure my time on Facebook/Twitter/IG/YouTube against the time spent doing other worthwhile things, or with worthwhile people. How much time is dedicated to silly videos, or scrolling, or news-fueled rage, vs. time spent reading classics, drawing with my daughter, talking with my wife about our children's development, etc.
Yes, we will miss out. It may affect our careers. But I do think that there's something special about human-to-human connection we can utilize other digital tools for in a more effective way than regular social media use.