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DAVID PENNOCK'S POST ON ATTENTION ECONOMICS got me thinking about how to make a formal economics about attention. Actually, I think there is a bit of economics in our everyday language of attention. People pay attention, as though paying a store. Easily distracted people have attention deficit disorder -- as though they have some kind of budget deficit.
Below are some key, underlying concepts that might be included in a formal economics of attention:- The Attention Budget: Budgets are finite, and so is the amount of attention people have to give. The size of your attention budget equals your number of waking hours multiplied by how hard you can focus during those waking hours.
The brain scan technology to measure how hard you're focusing already exists and is relatively unobtrusive. You can the technology in action action here. Economists should use this technology to quantify attention budgets and costs.
Interesting angles to 'Attention Budget' concept: - Your attention budget dies down at the end of the day and is replenished after a night's sleep. Its akin to getting a monthly paycheck that you use on expenses throughout the month.
- You can increase your budget by getting more sleep or learning to focus better. There seem to be diminishing marginal returns to both.
- There seem to be biological limits to how quickly you can deplete your attention budget. I'm not sure you could go bankrupt in an hour if you wanted to, unless you used medication.
- Increasing your budget should not be confused with using your budget more effectively -- ie, spending more attention on things that are important or effective at making you happy. No matter if you waste, you only have so many brain cycles before you go unconscious.
- Can you ever really eliminate your attention budget? What happens when it is at zero? Do you fall asleep or otherwise go unconscious?
- Attention Transactions: An attention transaction happens when you voluntarily give your attention to something. In exchange, you might recieve satisfaction, knowledge, money, food, prizes or something else. You might become offended, which might be equivalent to purchasing a lemon. We can quantify the 'costs' of an attention transaction by observing how long someone pays attention and how hard they focus. Once the costs have been quantified, we could observe the microeconomic tradeoffs between various goods and services.
Interesting angles:
- As a finite resource, attention cannot be re-used and is not transferable. When I buy a book with money, the store owner can re-use the money to pay his employees and buy more books. When I buy knowledge by paying attention to a professor, the professor's own attention budget does not rise. However, my attention might be valuable to the professor for social reasons. Which leads me to the next question ...
- Under what circumstances is my attention valuable to someone besides me? Advertisers might value my attention because it will make me more likely to buy. My professor might value my attention -- if it is shown in a public context -- because it creates the appearance that he's popular. What else?
- Attention is valuable as an input of goods and services. My work requires some attention to be valuable to my employer. Producing cars requires lots of people's attention and specialized skill sets. Without attention, goods and services cannot be created.
- Theft of Attention: Occasionally, something comes along and takes our attention without our permission. Your roommates could begin arguing, thus taking attention away from your studying. The economics equivalent might be theft or confiscation of money in your budget. You're forced to lose money on something you weren't anticipating and might not want.
Interesting angles: - Generally speaking, its a bad thing to lose your money involuntarily. However, it isn't always a bad thing to have your attention stolen. Suppose you're studying alone, and Ed McMahon suddenly jumps in with a $300M check for you. You're forced to pay attention to him, but it is a happy surprise. Is there a real-money equivalent to this?
- Society has insurance programs to deal with unexpected or involuntary losses of money and property: Theft insurance, disaster insurance, medical insurance, etc. What insurance-type programs or habits do we have to deal with attention stolen?
- Seems like there is a lot of theft of attention relative to theft of money. People are interrupting busy people a lot more than they are stealing people's money.
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