May I Have Your Attention, Please
Hey Reader 👋
The last time I posted an article, I wrote about current trends in a young professional career. Today, I write to you six months after finding that 2nd career. I am so excited to be starting the position as the Controller at Davidson Academy!!!
Everything I write from this point forward reflects me, my family, and now Davidson Academy. I don't take that lightly, but I know I am called to deliver content to anyone who will listen.Â
The show goes on! Enjoy these thoughts about your attention from an AI chatbot… (has that joke been used, yet?)
Every day "news" happens all around us.Â
My local grocery store caught on fire today, and it was massive news in my community's Facebook group. People had many emotions as everyone tried to figure out what was happening. I got on the phone with my fiance later, and she was sympathetic, but it did not invoke nearly as much of a response from her. Why is that?
Well, assuming no one was hurt, people outside of a 5-mile radius don't care, as it has no impact on their life. I potentially have to find a new grocery store, but John Brown, who lives a town over, doesn't even know what happened.
Most news stories do not affect your life. Because of this, the key to a good news story is to make the story affect you. Whether that's providing broad safety tips after a local death or the New York Times making you pick a side in a political debate, the story is a success if it invokes a response from you.Â
When done correctly, the news can be very effective on your thoughts, emotions, and behavior. When done poorly, it's meaningless information that hogs our attention. Outside of the significant news stories, often the key to making a story affect you is for it to be entertaining. Ever since the introduction of the 24-hour news cycle in our lives, entertainment disguises the significance of a story and instead attempts to keep the consumer's attention.
Attention is all anyone is after these days. I've got your attention right now - lucky me! But Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Netflix, NBC, Amazon, Fox, ESPN, and others will have your attention next. These platforms created the term "media" to describe anything that delivers content to us. In the chase for your attention, all of these platforms have embraced the model of entertainment, and they will bulldoze any boundary to win your eyes.
For the past couple of years - basically since the roller coaster news cycles of the Coronavirus (remember that term!?) - I've relinquished my need to be knowledgeable on every topic. The freeing nature of being ignorant versus the stress of being informed has never been more evident to me of which side I want to be on. That's not to say I don't care about issues, but my attention is too valuable to be suffocated by for-profit media companies.
I've had more conversations in the past few years where I genuinely do not know what is happening in a discussion:Â
"Did you read that story about the Senator scandal?"
"Nope"
"Did you see the new episode of *insert name* show?"Â
"No"
"Did you catch the end of that game last night?"
"I did not (but yes, I saw the highlights)."
Your attention is the most valuable asset you possess in the 21st Century. Too often, you and I give away our attention without thinking about the repercussions. That has to change, and it starts with an awareness of the harm we are doing. We're going to look at three different angles of how our attention is being negatively affected:
Real-time content has minimalized the value of our attention
Data has robbed the innocence of our attention
Entertainment has distorted the reality of our attention
Let's get to itÂ
Real-Time Content
My favorite form of television is documentaries. I love them. Half of the time, I know how a story will end, yet I am fascinated by the unknown details surfacing for the first time. I'm especially enthused by sports and music, so watching a documentary about how a team came together to conquer immense odds or how a band finally broke through on an album is so rewarding.Â
Before documentaries became mainstream, it was typical for a documentary to be filmed long after the chronicled events took place. My favorite music documentary is The History of The Eagles. The documentary was released in 2013 and follows the band's journey throughout the 1970s. The documentary's climax is the band's release of their biggest album, "Hotel California," in 1976 and the subsequent downfall of the band entering the 1980s (it's history, not a spoiler).
The uniqueness (by today's standard) of the Eagles's documentary is that the band members talk about these events 40 years later. Time allowed each member to realize the value of their work. The issues of the past have subsided, and egos have disappeared - all that is left to tell are valuable life lessons.Â
The low value of real-time content
Now, we examine the polar opposite… Harry Styles is arguably the most iconic musician on the planet right now. His talent is undeniable, so there is demand for his content. An important development of the 21st Century is the introduction of multiplicity, and Harry has capitalized on so much more than his music. But since his start in One Direction a decade ago, Harry Styles has been featured in four documentaries about his musical career.Â
As a content-hungry generation with big appetites, we demand as much content as possible, so why not reap the benefits if you're Harry Styles?
My concern with real-time content is this: You lose the value only time can provide. All that is left are rushed ideas that don't meet a project's potential quality. To make matters worse, our attention spans are thoroughly addicted to real-time content. Therefore, there is no intuitive decision on what piece of content is beneficial or what is a zero-value way to pass the time.Â
If we're in the trust tree, I haven't seen any of Harry Styles's documentaries, but the only message that real-time content gives of someone at the height of their career is, "Look at how awesome I am!"
That doesn't give me, the consumer, anything of value.Â
Here's another example: George R.R. Martin - author of the Game of Thrones books - has yet to finish publishing the book series. You probably haven't read the books but have seen (or know about) the critically acclaimed HBO TV Series based on the books. As the TV Series progressed, the directors stopped consulting with Martin halfway through Season 4.Â
Why?
Because Martin thought the series was being rushed; he felt it was losing value in haste. And if the viewer's opinion of the ending of the TV Series says anything, Martin was right.Â
The same principle goes for our work. When a manager wants a project done within the week, the quality will be lower than if they ask for it done in a month (I might be digging myself in a hole here).Â
When something is rushed to appease the notion of real-time consumption, it loses value. That is not to say it isn't always necessary or that a slowed-down model is better. But I can promise that everything does not fit the model: "We need to produce this as soon as possible."
Real-time content is more about feeding our addiction than giving you anything of value. Time is the only source for a value-add perspective, so it's critical that we re-train our attention spans to be patient.
Data Robs Our Innocence
In addition to the value we lose when we feed our attention with real-time content, we also lose the ability to have an innocent perspective. Let me explain:
War movies are fascinating to me. The events that have shaped our world today revolve around human conflict, and war has always been an unfortunate outlet. Minor details often determine the outcome of these massive conflicts, and the media will display this in a dramatic, captivating way. Fortunately, war is not a threat to my comfortable American life, so the - almost theatrical - portrayal of war is entertaining to me and thus very desensitizing, whereas a Ukranian young man or woman my age would beg to differ.Â
Maybe the most significant event of 2021 was when the U.S. evacuated American troops from Afghanistan. The scenes of the Afghan government being overthrown by the Taliban after the fact were horrid and invoked a furious response from the American public. The scenes were hard to watch, but I vividly remember thinking, "I can't wait to know the truth of this decision."
Whoa. In my head, I was wholly desensitized by the tragedy and went straight to a personal vindication of my ideology. This justification was necessary at the time because I put way more stock in my political identity, and, at that moment, data was the only thing that would satisfy this identity.Â
How do we validate our opinions in the 21st Century? By an abundance of data.Â
What did the 24-year-old sitting at his office desk have during this event? The same data everyone else had.Â
Do you know what we call someone who has an idea they theorize is right in a situation where all facts are unknown? A conspiracy theorist.Â
Our love of data has completely distorted where we spend our attention. L. M. Sacasas, in his newsletter, The Convivial Society, writes it beautifully about the abundance of information and the threat of conspiracy:
When we have a superabundance of information and/consequently a failure of trusted institutions, any effort to make sense of a situation, to connect the dots, will seem to others making a different run through the Database (and perhaps even feel to us) not unlike conspiracy theorizing. The materials are there in the Database, which is to say the massive digital archives we all dip into constantly. The urge to make sense of things is more or less a given. All we need is a provocation and within minutes, we've all got our dark-rimmed-Kevin-Costner-in-JFK glasses on.
It's not just that there is widespread disagreement about how to interpret the meaning of an event. It is also that there can be widespread disagreement about the basic facts of the event in question. It is one thing to argue the meaning of the moon landing for human affairs, it is another to incessantly debate whether the moon landing happened. Which is why, from someone's perspective, we are all conspiracy theorizers now. We are all in the position of holding beliefs, however sure we may be of them, that some non-trivial portion of the population considers not just mistaken but preposterous and paranoid.
More data, or in our context, more media, creates a diminishing returns effect when used at a macro-societal level. I'm about as pro-data as it comes, but our addiction to it, when applied to content consumption, is robbing our reality, brainwashing our identity, and creating more conflict.Â
Again, I'm not saying we don't care about anything. The most significant part about living in America is the First Amendment, so we have always been at the forefront of progress in the world - that often begins with people constantly pushing the status quo with data.
But our world and the data we live by are changing exponentially. Society has created this false narrative that someday we will keep advancing and create perfect harmony on Earth. That is impossible. So if your attention is fixed on being justified by data, then you'll always be changing and moving the goalpost to fit your narrative.
Therefore, I caution you to focus your full attention on something just because we have abundant data - even if that data validates you. Care about it enough that if you never see the issue through or the underlying circumstances change (because they will), then you will still have rest in the things you can control in your life.Â
At the end of the day, choosing to give your attention to ignorance is better than drowning in a never-ending pool of data. The most straightforward example is living through every iteration of social media and how quickly narratives change: I recently had to clean up old, ridiculous Facebook posts that I thought were valid then. How did past Davis validate those posts? With what is now old data.
I'd rather be an ignorant nobody than an informed personality constantly changing my identity because of new data.
The WWE'ification of Everything
When real-time content and endless data procreate, the result is tons of choices of where to give our attention. We're living in a time where the reality of the events around us has never been more difficult to decide because our world is consumed with constant entertainment. I call this the WWE Effect or the WWE'ification of everything.
I remember playing a WWE wrestling video game as a kid. At a young age, I couldn't quite understand that the match wasn't actual. A wrestling match usually involves:
Physical maneuvers to take down the other opponent
Extreme fatigue and real sweat from the wrestlers
Real props that helped tell the entertaining story
Good enough acting that will make anyone stop what they are doing and watch
It's this last point that validates the other three. Whatever you're doing, if wrestling is on, you can't help but watch for a few minutes in a daze at what is happening.
This is the goal of today's content: "Can I get your attention for 1 minute?"
Shockingly, it's not even that easy. According to a Nielson study, users will stay on a website for about 10 seconds before they decide if it is aesthetically pleasing enough to stay. Another study shows that we will comprehend video content in just 1 second - creating the market for TikTok, IG Reels, and YouTube Shorts.Â
Entertainment is the essence of content consumption, and that's fine if it's in the proper context. The problem is that entertainment has infested every piece of content and, more importantly, every industry. Non-stop entertainment makes it harder to understand what is real anymore.
Politics
History will reflect on Donald Trump's presidency as a landmark for how the media environment changed forever. Like it or not, politics suddenly become entertaining content, just like your troll-filled social media feed or comedic tv series. Trump embraced this character role of being our protagonist or antagonist, but unfortunately, never our President.
The more I look back at history, the more I'm convinced other presidents would have embraced this populist strategy, so it's hard for me to demonize Trump. Instead, I see him as a kerosene on a flame that had already started.
The other day, Joe Biden had a somewhat important tweet that I should have paid more attention to, but I scrolled right past it, brushing it off as "just another tweet from the president."
That is an incomprehensible mindset to have even a decade ago. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to incorporate recurring content into his presidency with his "fireside chats." FDR wanted these talks to be about reassuring the American people in chaotic times through calming rhetoric, like you were talking with him around a fire. These lasted from 1933 - 1944, the Great Depression through the end of World War II, or arguably the most challenging time in American history.
From the country scrambling to get around a radio to hear FDR address the nation to not even paying attention to what the President has to say, we have come a long way in 90 years. We've entered a world where our attention isn't phased by even the most powerful among us.Â
A prime reason for this is that professional content is morphed in with a comedic video that's just one scroll below it. Thus, professional messages have to be entertaining to grab your attention. This WWE'ification of content creates a fabricated environment for our attention to live in, burdening areas where we should live in reality.Â
Christianity
Brothers and sisters… I feel the weight of our Christian culture subscribing to entertainment as our savior and thus trying to create a Jesus who also needs to be entertaining.Â
We live in the first time in human history that religion is not seen as necessary for life. If you're like me, reading any history produces a foreign feeling at how ingrained higher power(s) were to peoples' way of life. Every culture had gods to worship, and the Bible even talks about these multiple gods (Psalms 86:8; 135:5; Exodus 12:12) but inferior to our one supreme God.Â
I battled our bogus postmodern mindset that sees religion as non-essential. As a believer, I struggled to administer the Gospel to someone else because, in my heart, did I really believe I needed it? Would my life be any different if I wasn't a believer?
By God's grace, I can say yes, but I'm telling you, a massive difficulty in coming to Christ involved eroding my need to be entertained. And do you know what never helped me believe this? The development of multi-million dollar churches with rockstar preachers. Unfortunately, a personal relationship with Jesus is second to keeping a postmodern Christian satisfied and entertained every Sunday morning.
So it only makes sense that Christianity can be perceived as "fake" or "not very Christ-like." I firmly believe future generations are making strides to overcome this, and Christ is at the head of this movement. Walls are being torn down, denominations are being uprooted, traditions are falling, and all that matters is the salvation that Jesus brings.
But this is only realized from the inside/out, not from the outside/in. Too often, hypocritical or even beneficial Christian content is lumped in with a sports highlight, a divisive political post, meaningless arguments, troll videos, and funny bits. Unsurprisingly, a random Bible verse falls on deaf ears when the next scroll is a video of someone being hit by a car.
A relationship with Jesus is far from boring, but the truth of the Gospel is not about keeping us entertained on Earth - it's about faith regardless of your feelings. God rarely works in real-time because, as we know, valuable things are formed over time.Â
Don't let a few loud distractions ruin the fact that a spiritual awakening is happening right now. God is real and far from anything like the WWE'ified reality our attentions' are addicted to. What He offers is restful, graceful, fulfilling, and, if you let Him work on his time, wildly entertaining.
The Solution
I recently finished a contract job, getting paid $40 an hour. It was a fortunate circumstance to be in as I finished up software school, but sometimes I would struggle to work depending on if I needed the $40 that day/week. I once heard on a podcast that you should treat your free time like it is worth $40 an hour. That's not a caution to be stingy or frugal with your time, but instead, be more giving and appreciative when someone gives you their time.
If we were to all do an audit of where our attention is being spent, we would be wasting hundreds of dollars day and night. And you know what? Most people don't care. Truthfully, I often chose to spend $40 (of my free time) on social media rather than work an hour at a job that kept me financially afloat.
How is that possible?
Well, it begins with having too much attention and not enough awareness to plan how to use it. Thus, we end up falling into an addictive cycle of giving our attention to big media companies who are masters at manipulating our attention. And currently, there is no cure.
That is why I'm not saying plan every hour and minute of your day, but if you're like me, 4 hours of free time after work can become 4 hours of poison to my mind. We must treat our attention as we would muscles in our body… slowly work it out to strengthen it (i.e., gradually create new habits) and feed it good food (i.e., content) to keep it healthy.Â
Let us meet our hardships in life by first determining where we give our attention. Only then can we decipher if life's stress, worry, anxiousness, and loneliness are self-inflicted?