This topic has been a long time coming, I know. But I wanted to do this properly, the right way and even though I know, that attention is a valuable commodity and it is so easy to lose, especially if one is not active enough on the internet. “What does not attract attention, does not exist!” as Robert Van Krieken (2020) wrote in his abstract “Economy of Attention Capital”.

But what do we define as attention? The American psychologist Willam James describes it as follows “The taken possession by the mind in a clear and vivid form, of one out of what seems several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought” (James, 1890, as cited by Van Krieken, 2020). James does not only describe attention as something only captured externally but also internally by way of our own thoughts. I think that we tend to forget that our inner works also tax on our daily attention allowance.

An allowance that is a part of the economy of attention, which was an early concept first described in 1902 by the French sociologist Gabriel Tarde, who described newspapers in terms we could transfer to how we experience social media today – “a kind of great, continuous and general advertisement” (Tarde, 1902, as cited by Van Krieken, 2020). Though news papers were issued in cycles of morning editions, afternoon editions and evening editions, the flow still had a break in between. Today’s social media and digital newspapers are on all the time, 24/7!. There is no morning issue of Instagram or a late evening issue of Facebook.

When news papers were issued in these cycles one could buy the morning paper to ensure, they understood the news from the day before and one could purchase the evening issue to catch up on the news of the day. The attention to what went on in society was different and so was advertisement. Yes, it existed back then too, it was less tailored to personal preferences though there were ways to advertise more directly to one’s product or service demographic by publishing adds in newspapers with liberal, conservative or centered affiliations.

These days we have algorithms tailoring the flow and screens almost everywhere, even on fridges. Actually, the whole idea for this post started with a fridge, as I had watched a YouTube video about a very expensive fridge (3000$) with a screen. The fridge had functions such as shopping list keeping, a calendar and the usual temperature information on the display. The Producer announced later that, they would start rolling out advertisement for the fridge screens and that got me thinking about how advertisement is stealing our attention all the time. To me advertisement has become noise, I don’t recognize it as advertisement anymore, just as something annoying, that I hope I can skip!.

Anastasiya Ilyina from the State University of Trades and Economics in Kyiv captures it perfectly in her paper “Media Advertising as Human Capital: The Attention Economy and its Challenges” where she describes attention as having become one of the most scarce and expensive resources. Ilyina clarifies it further by explaining that every single person is constantly subject to an enormous flow of information from news, social media and digital advertisement. So, if attention is a commodity and digital marketing and advertisement is so prevalent, have you ever wondered how much money our attention worth? Well, digital marketing grew 15% in 2024 in the US alone that is about 258.6 billion dollars and for the EU it rose to 118.9 billion Euros for the first time in its history (Ilyina, 2025). That’s a lot of money for our attention and time spent on the internet.

With the introduction of social media and influencer fame, companies saw new opportunities for advertisement, as a hunger for authenticity and product reviews rose. Paying an influencer to advertise a product or service started out as an authentic advertisement strategy, to a tailored audience. Personally, I do not find it authentic today, as scandal after scandal of influencer advertised products appear and questionable business practices are revealed down the line, here are two examples:

• BetterHelp: BetterHelp is a service for online therapy, the company was widely advertised by YouTubers. BetterHelp was sued in 2023 for questionable business practices in regard to personal information and third-party sharing. BetterHelp lost the lawsuit and was fined 7.8 Million $.

• Established Titles: This company promised people that for only 1$ they could purchase land in Scotland and receive the rightful title of “Lord” or “Lady” and proclaimed it was a part of Scottish law to receive such a title upon owning Scottish land. It turned out, that the plots were so small they could not legally be registered for ownership and that the titles weren’t recognized by Scottish law, and thereby the titles could not rightfully be claimed.

There are more out there, smaller ones, like sponsors to influencers for various types of weight-loss products that turn out to not work or make people very ill, clothing that is advertised as being high quality, which turns out to be the contrary and energy boosting products that contain addicting ingredients. I can only imagine what such examples does to consumer trust and how they perceive sponsored influencer advertisement in the future, it sure has for me.

The over-saturation of advertisement combined with the questionable business practices of sponsored influencer advertisement and forced ad breaks on Instagram and Facebook when you opt out of their personalized advertisement scheme. Has really impacted where I want to spend my attention allowance and who deserves my precious time online. I have become more critical of the entertainment I consume, and I haven’t even included what the influx of AI generated content that dominates every platform. (I look for AI free content labels now a days, but that’s a story for another time)

Thank you for using some of your attention allowance on my blog today

Van Krieken, R. (2020). Economy of attention and attention capital [Preprint]. ResearchGate. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.12910.02885

Ilyina, A. (2025). Media advertising as human capital: The attention economy and its challenges. International Science Journal of Management, Economics & Finance, 4(5), 61–73. https://doi.org/10.46299/j.isjmef.20250405.06

1. How much do you agree with the following statement: There’s too much advertisement everywhere today: 1 – I agree completely / 5 – I Disagree completely

• How much do you agree with the following statement: Influencer advertisement is trustworthy: 1 – I agree completely / 5 – I Disagree completely

• How much do you agree with the following statement: Advertisement has become an annoyance1 – I agree completely / 5 – I Disagree completely

• I use Ad blockers to avoid seeing ads

• I often buy stuff advertised to me (Online, in-app, tv, radio, billboard)