The Half-Truth of Attention Metrics and the Totalising Effect of the Media Equation

Date: 20 July 2023

As the communications industries rush to hail any AI-driven 'innovation', the flavour du jour is now so-called Attention Metrics. However, its high-profile proponents continually fail to answer the fundamental questions; What is attention, anyway? Where does it come from? What is it for? And how is it allocated? Instead, the nascent Attention metrics tend to focus on unreliable - and somewhat rudimentary - proxy measures such as eye tracking and dwell time. Yet as our Silicon Valley overlords work tirelessly to devise new forms of supernormal stimulus designed to hijack our mental circuits - carry on up the metaverse - understanding the hidden workings of our own minds has never been more important. This session is not a teardown, but if Attention Metrics is going to be really helpful, then it will come from underpinning the technology with insights from human nature. Guess what? I'm here to help.