"We built a world humans aren't designed for." Johann Hari said that to Peter McCormack, and it lands hard.
The attention economy is not an accident. Algorithms reward outrage because anger keeps us scrolling, and they exploit a negativity bias baked into our brains. Hari's analogy is the one that stays with me: we treated lead in petrol as a systemic problem and banned it, and public health improved. Surveillance capitalism deserves the same treatment. This is not a personal failing to be fixed with willpower and screen-time limits.
What struck me most was McCormack's honesty. Successful by every traditional metric, yet feeling hollow, and wondering aloud whether his own business model, built on algorithmic attention, is part of the problem. That kind of self-questioning is rare.
Hari's advice is refreshingly simple: externalise the dilemma. Put intrinsic values first: the people you love, live music, a pet, shared experiences, anything real and non-digital. The machine feeds on attention. Starve it, deliberately, and give that attention to things that actually matter.
Reclaiming focus is not self-improvement. It is resistance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akj4EGPiQEY
#AttentionEconomy #JohannHari #DigitalWellbeing #MentalHealth #TechEthics #AttentionResistance
The attention economy is not an accident. Algorithms reward outrage because anger keeps us scrolling, and they exploit a negativity bias baked into our brains. Hari's analogy is the one that stays with me: we treated lead in petrol as a systemic problem and banned it, and public health improved. Surveillance capitalism deserves the same treatment. This is not a personal failing to be fixed with willpower and screen-time limits.
What struck me most was McCormack's honesty. Successful by every traditional metric, yet feeling hollow, and wondering aloud whether his own business model, built on algorithmic attention, is part of the problem. That kind of self-questioning is rare.
Hari's advice is refreshingly simple: externalise the dilemma. Put intrinsic values first: the people you love, live music, a pet, shared experiences, anything real and non-digital. The machine feeds on attention. Starve it, deliberately, and give that attention to things that actually matter.
Reclaiming focus is not self-improvement. It is resistance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Akj4EGPiQEY
#AttentionEconomy #JohannHari #DigitalWellbeing #MentalHealth #TechEthics #AttentionResistance