Will the gaming industry expand its attention management?

[Antony Dilan]

I read somewhere that in the future, we might actually get paid for our attention. Like, instead of paying for a service with money, we pay with our ‘gaze’ and the data it generates. It sounds cool to get free stuff, but it also feels like I’m turning myself into a product. Is our attention really that valuable that companies would literally bribe us for it? I feel like there’s a catch that I’m not seeing. If my focus is a commodity, then who is really in control of my thoughts and my time at the end of the day?

[Frank Sinatra]

The catch is that once you commodify your attention, you lose your agency. I was reading about the ethics of this on https://www.fontmirror.com/en/the-attention-economy-of-the-future/ and it’s a complicated moral landscape. The article points out that as AI and eye-tracking technology advance, companies will be able to measure exactly how much ‘value’ you are providing. If you are being paid to watch something, your brain is essentially working for a corporation. The future economy isn’t just about selling you things; it’s about owning your time and directing your consciousness toward specific goals that benefit the platform holders

[Antony Dilan]

It’s basically the ultimate form of ‘gig work’ where your only job is to exist and be a consumer. But the real danger is the loss of ‘unstructured time.’ If every moment of our attention is monetized or tracked, we lose the space for daydreaming, creativity, and original thought. Those are the things that happen when we aren’t focused on a specific digital goal. If we sell our attention to the highest bidder, we might find that we’ve accidentally sold the very thing that makes us human. I’d rather pay for my apps with cash than with my soul.

[Author]

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