Welcome to the Attention Economy
There’s really nothing new about FQ. The ideas behind it might form some of the oldest in human history, defined separately by many wisdom traditions for the last four thousand odd years. Think about the famous serenity prayer, penned in the 1930s and popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous to “accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” FQ is all about “knowing the difference.” But making that call has gotten much more difficult in the last thirty years.
In 1997, policy wonk Michael Goldhaber looked at the kind of future that the blossoming tech revolution was about to bring about and understood exactly. “Attention, at least the kind we care about, is an intrinsically scarce resource,” he argued. “My conclusion is that we are headed into what I call the attention economy.”
He was right. Today’s world is all about attention. Most every app or website is built around selling our attention to advertisers—including Twitter, Facebook, CNN, and the likes. Our personal devices run the show. We know that these apps are addictive too, as numerous research studies have shown how these digital platforms hijack our dopamine responses and keep us neurologically enthralled.
In fact, our brain chemistry has everything to do with it. Neurologists and cognitive psychologists know that much of how we behave comes down to our amygdala. Stress, fear, and excitement all fire up this very ancient portion of our brains. It doesn’t know that were reacting to a work email and not a sabertooth tiger, so the same physiognomic reaction ensues. Our prefrontal cortex, responsible for rational decision making, takes a back seat and panic ensures.
Ironically, in the face of all of these stimuli, we have tons of tech tools marketed to help us increase productivity and efficiency. But they all miss the point. Pushing to get more done during the day is a hollow goal. That’s why FQ is filter quality, because we are just as concerned about filtering out stimuli as we are about the quality of how we respond, the qualities of who we are, the quality of what we do.
Timothy S Nurse
Posted at 13:35h, 01 FebruaryLoved this article on FQ. The way we filter information is more important than the information it self. I look forward to reading more about FQ and how I can apply it to my career.
Michael L Calderaro
Posted at 16:07h, 01 FebruaryThoughtful, well organized and clearly written. Thanks for the good read