The Attention Tax

Every leap in media technology has quietly cost us our attention.

Each technological generation shrinks our attention window. First print, then radio, then television, then the internet and on-demand streaming, and now short-form video — each format compressing attention further than the last. These media present themselves as delivering value, but that value is largely a guise: the real aim is to serve advertising and extract data.

Attention spans will keep narrowing as information is compressed into ever-smaller units. The true cost, though, is mental health. Humans did not evolve to absorb information at this volume and velocity — a strain that often grows with age. The challenge is to keep pace with technology without surrendering our well-being to it.

So the task isn’t to resist technology, but to decide, on purpose, where our attention goes.