THERE is much talk about digital democratisation, extending it even to younger children. Digital access is framed as a right. There are “digital natives” growing up in the Information Age subjected to a constant visual stream. On another level, globally, there’s the hyper-commodification of the algorithm and the self-attention economy. Social media platforms worth hundreds of billions of dollars are now turbocharged by artificial intelligence (AI).
I believe this combination has profoundly changed human attention. In a world flooded with limitless information, attention has become fleeting and fragmented. Research has shown the average attention span has reduced by about 25% over the years.
