Attention, Mindshare, & Media
Concerns & impacts of engaging with modern media.
Okay, let’s talk about how we interact with the media and how it profoundly affects our life experience. Keep in mind that I’m not a professional scientist, but I do work with media tools quite regularly and wanted to share my own thoughts after some research and reflection.
Control the Message, Control the Mind
The modern world is divisive, and this is not by coincidence. Human attention has become an extremely valuable commodity for marketers and media companies, and these companies have no shortage of scientific knowledge on how to gain (and keep) the attention of the public in order to shape people’s beliefs, behaviors, and purchasing patterns. Whether we actively consider it or not, there are countless companies and business/political interests that are constantly competing to influence how we think and act, and they’re very effective at what they do.
The most important concept for those working in the media sphere is mindshare, which is the amount of consumer awareness or popularity surrounding a particular product, idea, or company. Interest groups (people who typically want money and power) compete for mindshare with tailored advertisements and overt (or covert) messaging, then use feedback & data to analyze and understand who their audiences are, what they’re viewing, what they’re buying, and how they’re interacting with the different types of content that they’re coming into contact with.
One timeless lesson that media creators have learned from extensive experimentation is that extremes grab attention & drive engagement. Whether it’s an intense sporting event, a wildly radical opinion, a headline describing horrendous war crimes, or a dramatic trailer to an action television series, these entities know how to get and keep us hooked. Experts are constantly monitoring and comparing results from different inputs, and they ultimately continue to push more content and messaging that results in higher clicks, longer view times, and higher ad revenue, even leaning into inflammatory or inaccurate information (depending on the source).
So, keep in mind that the media is constantly exposing you to the most extreme scenarios in the world to the point that if you’re regularly interacting with it, vast outliers can start to feel like norms. It’s a fantasy world that can completely remove you from meaningful realities and the human experience.
We’re All Influenced by Media Exposure
Many of us like to think that we’re independent-minded and aren’t susceptible to being radically influenced by media outlets, but that’s simply untrue; the type of media that we engage with plays a massive role in shaping how we interact with the world around us.
There was a study conducted by scientist Albert Bandura and his colleagues back in the early 1960s that exemplified how behavior in people (namely children) can be shaped by the behaviors that they observe from others (models). That is to say, if we watch someone else behave a certain way in a specific situation, we’re more likely to replicate that behavior if we’re put into the same situation - even if we have no previous experience or conditioning. At the time, this research was quite disruptive to the previously held belief that most human behavior was shaped by external feedback loops.
When you were a child, you likely aligned your beliefs most closely with your parents or guardians, then evolved them as you gained more exposure to different social groups and information. It’s not uncommon for young kids to hold strong beliefs about the world simply because the people they looked up to instilled those beliefs into them, both directly or indirectly. If you aren’t furthering your education or challenging your existing beliefs, it’s likely that you’re simply working off of the views of your most direct influences, regardless of whether or not you’ve been thoroughly informed on the matters of those topics. Media is likely the easiest access to information that you have, so it’s playing a major part in shaping your beliefs on topics that you have little applied experience with.
Environments shape the way we think about the world, and the type of media we engage with can push us to extremes, leading to (and fanning on) strong opinions. Social media platforms play into a phenomenon called algorithmic bias, which means that they dial down our behavior and feed us more and more content that aligns with it. Since these platforms continually target us with information that aligns with our existing views and preferences, we get very limited exposure to alternative views and start believing that the world is a much more polarizing, singular, and contentious place than it actually is. When many folks walk around in a constant state of anxiety or conflict, it’s almost in direct correlation with the polarizing forms media they’re consuming.
Attention
Attention is best explained as the brain’s cognitive process of selectively concentrating on one aspect of an environment while ignoring others. It’s driven by both external and internal cues, where external attention is usually involuntary (like a bear charging at you) as opposed to internal attention that’s driven by a person’s voluntary motivations.
Attention works in stages - first, someone has to be alert and aware, then they have to be presented with a stimulus, then they have to choose to direct and keep their focus on that stimulus rather than other available options.
In today’s economy, attention itself is a scarce resource that’s fiercely competed for. Marketers traditionally aimed to gain as many impressions as possible through billboards, television, and the press, but now, technology has become sophisticated enough that marketers can start to analyze actual engagement for ads. Advertisers can now see more sophisticated metrics, such as how long someone stuck with a digital ad and whether or not they clicked on (and eventually bought) the item or service that was being promoted - as well as how long it took them to to buy and how much repeated exposure was required to buy. They’re constantly searching for combinations of imagery, messaging, and audio content that will drive interest from consumers and potential consumers.
The initial aim of advertisements is to grab and hold someone’s interest within the first few seconds of being exposed, with the ultimate goal being to become the first choice that comes to someone’s mind when they have a specific want or need. You can quickly ask yourself what comes to mind whenever you think of a certain soft drink, yogurt, basketball player, etc. Whatever comes to mind first will expose how your mind has been influenced by media and marketing. Whenever we run a query through a search engine, we usually say that we’re “Googling” something even though the search engine market is much broader because Google has done an outstanding job at capturing mindshare (as well as dominating market share).
Ultimately, the goal of effective marketing is to successfully capture and sustain someone’s attention such that they move from awareness, to consideration, to conversion, to loyalty with a specific behavior or belief system.
How Media Consumption Harms Us
If there’s one thing I want you to understand about this whole media thing, it’s that at the end of the day, it’s still a business. These companies can outwardly preach about social responsibility all day, but their primary concern lies with the interests of their owners (aka, making them copious amounts of money), and their actions will always reflect that. They are mostly operated amorally, and sometimes even immorally.
Media platforms present us with extreme, unrealistic perceptions that tear down our self-esteem, play on our FOMO, exploit our insecurities, and grab our attention through negativity and “doomerism” that make us feel anxious and vulnerable. We’re intentionally exposed to this content because it makes us more likely to engage and spend money, even if it comes at the cost of our sanity and health.
Social media platforms, in particular, use variable reward systems to create user addiction that affect our brains the way gambling does. We receive fluctuating amounts of validation via views, likes, and comments for each post, which this creates addictive behavior that drives compulsive usage and withdrawals when we aren’t connected.
The negative effects hit us hard physically, too. Blue light exposure is bad for sleep, and sitting on a screen all day can ultimately replace physical activity and real life socialization. We can strain our eyes, ruin our posture, and can even experience chronic inflammation from the mental stress that these platforms place on us.
Then, we run into cognitive challenges. Endless information streams burn us out, we lose our attention spans, we process info at a shallow level, we lose our ability to critically think, and we become addicted to instant gratification (which pulls us away from long-term thinking).
And last but not least, media consumption has a negative impact on us socially. Too much time online takes away from meaningful in-person relationships, makes us more prone to being argumentative and disagreeable (due to polarization), raises our likelihood of spreading false information to others, and makes our interactions more transactional and superficial.
Needless to say, media consumption can quite literally ruin people’s health and lives if not carefully managed. There are countless credible studies that show a strong correlation between social media usage and tendencies to self-harm.
What Can We Do?
The bottom line is that if you’re online, you have to use media and not let media use you. The people running these platforms care more about money and power than you and your folks - if anyone hasn’t explicitly told you this outright, I’m telling you now. They’re looking out for them, not you. They don’t hate you, they just see you as more of a dollar figure than someone they know personally.
I’m going to write out a running list of things that you can do to improve and manage your relationship with media, with the full understanding that many of us need to use media for one purpose or another that we can’t do without (professional reasons, etc.):
You should primarily be using media tools for business or educational purposes, especially if you’re over the age of 23. Many of these tools are great for learning about finances, fitness, home repair, hobbies, etc. if they are used properly. Conversely, they can actively make you dumber if used to spur inflammatory beliefs.
Be human. Get together with friends in person more often. Focus on things that bring you closer together. Hang out, play sports, go out, play video games, sit around, whatever. Just get around good company as much as you can. Replace media time with learning, exercise, and socialization.
Always use apps with a purpose. Ideally, you’d be using them as a producer to promote your business, share useful ideas, and so on, but if you’re consuming on them, make sure you’re actually learning about useful things like business, science, or niche hobbies that help you connect with community.
Put a hard limit on the negative stuff. Yes, reality isn’t always sunshine and rainbows, but there’s lots of media out there that’s designed to make you sad, angry, and depressed. If it’s fueling negative emotions, cut it out and move over to something more uplifting.
Consider ditching a smartphone as your primary device and only accessing the web through a computer or tablet when connected to Internet. Lots of people choose to use “dumb phones” for more basic communication and to reclaim their attention.
If you do use a smartphone, use grayscale mode (makes your screen black & white) and downtime/app limits to make your apps unavailable during certain hours where your attention is required for work tasks or self-development. This will take away some of the phone’s ability to steal your attention.
Always consider money and motive when engaging with media. Ask yourself “Who is promoting this, what are they trying to get me to do or believe, and why do they want me to behave or feel that way?”
If you’re engaging with partisan media, make sure to always consider and educate yourself on opposing stances to the beliefs that are being promoted, and understand why others have arrived at differing beliefs.
Last but not least, always fact check the content that you’re engaging with. Check the credibility of the source, too.
Always carry the understanding that there are trillions of dollars tied up in media, and its primary goal is to influence your behaviors and beliefs to align with big money’s interests.
Value education over entertainment. I’m all for having fun, but don’t become so obsessed with entertainment that it supersedes your livelihood.
Don’t be afraid to seek help or counsel if you’ve developed a genuine addiction. Take control of your life, and don’t let the media fiddle with you.
To going outside more,
Jared