Log off/Climb on!

“The true scarce commodity is increasingly human attention”. This idea sounds pretty innocuous.  It can be interpreted in an abundance of ways, both optimistically (attention span isn’t infinite so use it wisely) and pessimistically (our attention span is barely serviceable, we are no different than a louse).  The scariest understanding of that quote is the one understood realistically.

Ten years ago in 2014, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft made this announcement in a memo.  According to a Microsoft Canada study, average human attention has dropped from 12 seconds to 8 seconds since 2000.  Tech companies are vying for this precious resource in what is now referred to as the Attention Economy.  An economy in which these 8 seconds have become the gold standard of the digital era.

Companies vying for attention is nothing new.  Dog and pony shows of the ancient world were well aware that nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd.  Sears and Roebuck sent out their first full catalogue in 1891, complete with photos, descriptions, and a visible phone number.  Newspapers and magazines put the lead on the front page for a reason.  Colorful uniforms, cheerleaders, dance routines, catchy music, and attractive people have been used to capture the limited attention span of humans since before the written word.

While the goal of capturing your attention hasn’t changed, the means by which companies capture those precious 8-12 seconds has been supercharged beyond anything imaginable.

The job of social media companies is to keep people engaged, but even in the early days of social media apps, whistle blowers were already warning of potential problems.  Potential problems aside, social networks had a focused goal: Optimize how many users could be drawn in, and how long they can remain engaged.  In 2012 YouTube set a watch-time goal of a billion daily hours.  It took four years, the advent of cloud computing, deep learning AI, a rage-loop echo chamber, and countless other factors both contrived and accidental, but a billion hours a day has been the norm ever since.

Of course, it isn’t only YouTube.  Since they set their billion-hour daily goal, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and all other social network apps have followed suit.

These are social networking companies in a capitalist, commerce driven world.  The goal is to make money.  Their motives aren’t unique or blameworthy, but the acts by which they achieve those money driven ends are questionable, and consequences stemming from these acts are discouraging and alarming at best.

It was no secret in the early days of social networks that rage inducing content could maximize time on site, and with a few technological breakthroughs rage would become all the rage. 

Algorithms were designed for topical affinity, and companies were designed to keep people engaged.  What starts off as a cursory glance at kitten videos, slowly yet intentionally slides into a rabbit hole of indignation extracting information and misinformation.  From anti-vaxxers to Trump supporters, cancel culture to border control, it didn’t matter what side you were on, the goal is always one more click, and the systems are designed to keep us engaged.  One billion hours a day!

From kittens to outrage, from independence to tribalism.  Social networks found a way to hijack our time, our attention, and our politics.

Once Deep-Learning AI entered the fray around 2016 it was all over but the shouting!  Deep-learning assumed the job of oversight, and from there it was algorithms improving algorithms to hold our attention.  Users are unknowingly involved in a bidirectional relationship, where deep-learning models learn our behavior based on scrolling, clicks, and likes.  From there they can offer more content to scroll, click, and like, which gives the machines more information about our behavior leading to more scrolls, clicks, and likes.  This has led to 70% of time on site (for YouTube) being the result of algorithm run recommendations.

“You may not realize it, but your experiences are being powered by AI.  If Facebook wanted billions of users to do more or less of something – clicking, liking, commenting – all their company had to do was ask their system to make it happen.”¹

With attention-capital at an all-time high, social network executives seem to share a similar refrain. 

“Over the long run more and more people will use Facebook, they’ll spend more and more time on it and that will be good for them, it will be good for Facebook, and it will be good for publishers”²

You can find similar quotes from executives at Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and nearly every other social network in existence.

From raised levels of isolation and loneliness, to the well documented Russian manipulation of elections, Oregonians banning fluoride, Brazilians rolling back Zika protections, social unrest and violence in Sri Lanka, and an outright genocide in Myanmar, social media users have grown meaner, angrier, and more entitled.³ Results like these don’t sound too good for us, but hey, at least it’s good for Facebook!

Microsoft once launched an AI run Twitter account called Tay.  Tay’s goal was to “converse convincingly with humans by learning from each exchange”.⁴ It took 96,000 interactions for Microsoft to pull the plug.  On day one, Tay wrote “can i just say that im stoked to meet u?  humans are super cool”. By the end of the day, Tay had tweeted “Hitler was right I hate the Jews”.  Within a day Tay, a learning algorithm had become a Trump supporting neo-Nazi.  That doesn’t sound good, but hey, at least it’s good for Twitter.

We’re consuming the exact same media diet that was fed to Tay, 70% of which is served hot and fresh from attention seeking algorithms.

In 2016 social media companies let learning algorithms (something they did not fully understand) loose on billions of unsuspecting people.  These algorithms took full control of the attention economy, and business is booming.  A billion hours a day on YouTube alone.  A billion daily hours is almost impossible to comprehend, but a billion was only a superficial goal.  The underlying goal is permanent growth of users, time, and attention, the underlying goal is complete authority over human activity.

It’s impossible to outsmart or outrun a learning algorithm trained on your personal interactions, and there is only one way to fight back. 

Log off! 

The once simple deed of powering down, shutting off, or unsubscribing has become an act of revolt, and those who delete or minimize their use of social media are revolutionaries!

And so, in an age where our time is bought, hijacked, and stolen before it’s then sold to the highest bidder, I say we start a revolution.  A revolution where something as simple as the act of climbing is considered rebellious!

Climb ON!!!

1. Fisher, Max. The Chaos Machine: The inside story of how social media rewired our minds and our world. London: Quercus, 2023.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.