"At Netflix, we are competing for our customers' time, so our competitors include Snapchat, YouTube, sleep, etc."Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, as quoted in this six minute talk on the attention economy:
Fantastic though the quote is, I don't think Netflix is the worst offender here. After all, it's an entertainment company, so it's an open secret that its products only exist to pleasurably divert your attention.
It's far worse to have your attention stolen by relentless advertisers and marketers yammering ceaselessly, and far less entertainingly, for ever bigger slices of your bandwidth. Worse still are the infotainment and social media industries, which dangle the promise of a meaningful connection with the significant humans in your life, or an informed take on what's happening in the world in general, but too often fill the headspace that should be available for worthwhile interaction and understanding with a distorted, abbreviated, decontextualised blizzard of trivia and sensation.
You can forewarn and forearm yourself against the siren voices of distraction but, as the Odyssey warned, you should take extreme precautions if you want to play with temptation without being lured onto the rocks.
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| This guy won't pay to hear the Sirens. You won't believe what happens next! |
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