A group of young people focusing their attention on their mobile phones

Have you heard of the attention economy? This relatively new term is used to describe the business of a customer’s attention.

Attention may not be as tangible a resource as something like cash, but it’s a resource all the same. This is because, as Matthew Crawford so aptly says, a person only has so much of it.

As a business, your first port of call, before you can even consider converting your audience into customers, is to capture their attention. And here’s the thing. Consumers are drowning in the noise of competing businesses. All of whom are vying for their attention.

Delfina Forstmann appropriately compared it to the experience of walking through a bazaar somewhere in Asia. As you meander through the tents, hawkers peddle their wares at you. Some yell, some follow, others push products into your hands. More often than not, you don’t go to the bazaar to buy anything in particular. You usually end up buying something all the same. And this purchase is most often based upon an impression of a personable experience with the merchant and a lingering perception that what they were offering was set at a reasonable price for the quality of the goods.

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The attention economy in eCommerce

In the online world, the attention economy dictates who (which friends, businesses, influencers or accounts) or what (which products, services, content or memes) we give our attention to. Throughout our day, each of us is bombarded with thousands of advertising messages. We aren’t consciously aware of it. Many of these we may not really ‘see’ as our attention is elsewhere when our eyes run over them. But some will pierce through the white noise and capture us strongly enough that we focus our attention on what we are looking at. This is the ultimate goal.

And the noise has only got worse. When that figure of a few thousand ads a day first did the rounds, it already felt overwhelming. Today, industry estimates put daily ad exposure at somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 messages, up from around 5,000 in 2007 and just a few hundred back in the 1970s. The catch? We consciously register fewer than 100 of them. Our brains have learned to filter, a phenomenon marketers call “banner blindness”, which means the vast majority of advertising simply washes over us unseen. That’s the wall you’re up against.

The shortening attention span

Globally, attention spans are shortening. You’ve probably heard the famous claim that humans now have a shorter attention span than a goldfish, about eight seconds. It’s a great line. It’s also a myth: when the BBC went looking for the source, the report everyone kept citing didn’t actually contain the stat, and goldfish, for the record, have perfectly good memories.

But don’t let that comfort you, because the real research is arguably more sobering. Studies led by UC Irvine’s Gloria Mark have tracked how long we focus on a single screen before switching: about two and a half minutes back in 2004, around 75 seconds by 2012, and just 47 seconds today. We’re not competing with goldfish. We’re competing with the last thing that pinged.

As a business, this means that not only do you need to account for the noise in the attention economy, you also need to account for your audience’s dwindling attention span. How?

  1. Think short, sharp and punchy.
  2. Don’t be verbose or overly wordy when not necessary.
  3. You can still create long form content but only if it’s really helpful.
  4. Edit, edit, edit.
  5. Use design to catch the eye and fun, entertaining content to engage.

And what about catching the attention of your audience in the first place? Well, there are two trains of thought here.

  1. Create more content
  2. Create more silence

The noise just got louder: AI and the content flood

When this article first went out, the attention economy was already brutal. Then generative AI arrived and poured petrol on it. Since late 2022, the web has been flooded with machine-made content. By 2025, industry analyses estimated that roughly three-quarters of new web pages contained AI-generated text, and the volume of AI-written articles briefly overtook human-written ones. Europol has gone as far as predicting that up to 90% of online content could be synthetically generated by 2026.

What does that mean for you? Two things. First, the noise is louder than it has ever been, so cutting through matters more than ever. Second, and this is the good news, volume is no longer a moat. Anyone can now generate endless mediocre content in seconds, which means more of it than ever is forgettable. The brands that win aren’t the ones publishing the most, they’re the ones publishing the most original, useful and human.

Search engines have caught on too, rewarding real human insight and quietly burying generic AI filler. So you don’t have to out-spam the robots. You have to outperform them, with a real point of view, real experience and a real voice. It’s the same lesson we keep coming back to: AI is a tool, not a team.

Creating more content

According to this particular way of thinking, businesses will benefit from making the switch from advertising to content marketing. The trick here is to shift to a more targeted and individualised approach and to meet your audience where they spend most of their time, social media. And then to create as much content as you can. If this feels like the direction for you and you need some inspiration, here’s a bunch of social media content ideas that may help.

One caveat for today’s world though: in an internet awash with AI-generated filler, churning out more content for its own sake won’t cut it like it used to. The goal isn’t more, it’s better. One piece of content that’s actually worth someone’s scarce attention will do more for you than fifty that aren’t.

Creating more silence

According to Matthew Crawford, silence is now a luxury good. The absence of advertising has become so uncommon that it now feels truly luxurious when we chance upon it. Of course, in the business world, we can’t not position ourselves to be seen. Marketing is necessary. True silence isn’t an option or we may as well not exist.

However, you can take the essence of silence and build that into your brand. Think minimalistic design and specific, targeted, spaced-out marketing over loud, busy and the constant hounding of your audience. Your aim is to become a beacon of quiet in the cacophony of the marketplace and therefore a welcome respite from the noise to your audience.

How the numbers have changed

If you ever doubted that the attention economy is getting harder, here’s the shift in black and white:

Metric Then Now
Average focus on a single screen About 2.5 minutes (2004) About 47 seconds
Ads encountered per day Around 500 to 1,600 (1970s) An estimated 6,000 to 10,000
Time on your phone each day 3h 38m (2021) 5h 16m (2025)
AI’s share of new online content Effectively none (before 2022) Around three-quarters of new pages

(Sources: screen-focus research led by UC Irvine’s Gloria Mark, industry ad-exposure estimates, global screen-time data and AI-content analyses.)

The businesses that thrive in the attention economy aren’t the loudest, they’re the clearest, the most relevant and the most human. If you’d like a hand cutting through the noise with a brand that actually lands, a free brand audit is a good place to start, or explore our brand strategy work.

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FAQs

What is the attention economy?

The attention economy is the idea that human attention is a scarce, valuable resource that businesses compete for, just like they compete for money. Because we’re all bombarded with more content and advertising than we could ever process, our attention has become the bottleneck. Before you can convert anyone into a customer, you first have to capture their attention, and that’s harder now than it has ever been.

How short is the average attention span now?

You’ll often hear that humans have an eight-second attention span, shorter than a goldfish, but that’s a myth that was debunked years ago (and goldfish actually have decent memories). The credible research, from UC Irvine’s Gloria Mark, found that our focus on a single screen has dropped from around two and a half minutes in 2004 to roughly 47 seconds today. So while the goldfish line isn’t true, the underlying trend, that sustained attention is shrinking fast, very much is.

How many ads do we see a day?

Estimates vary because it’s almost impossible to count precisely, but most industry research now puts daily ad exposure somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 messages, up from around 5,000 in 2007 and a few hundred in the 1970s. The important nuance is that we consciously register fewer than 100 of them. Thanks to “banner blindness”, the vast majority wash over us unnoticed, which is exactly why simply adding more noise rarely works.

Has AI made the attention problem worse?

In terms of noise, yes. Since generative AI took off in late 2022, the web has been flooded with machine-made content, with analyses suggesting around three-quarters of new web pages now contain AI-generated text. But there’s a silver lining: when everyone can produce endless average content instantly, volume stops being an advantage. Originality, real experience and a human voice become the things that actually stand out, and search engines increasingly reward exactly that.

How do businesses win attention today?

Not by shouting louder. The winners are clear, relevant and human. That means knowing your audience deeply, leading with value, keeping your message short and sharp, and showing up consistently in the places your people actually spend time. It also means having a real point of view rather than bland, me-too content. In a world of infinite noise, a distinctive, trustworthy brand is your single biggest advantage.

Is it better to create more content or less?

It’s less about quantity and more about quality and intent. There’s a case for creating more content to meet your audience where they are, and a case for “creating more silence” by being deliberately minimal and targeted. Both can work. What no longer works, especially now the web is drowning in AI filler, is churning out generic content for its own sake. Whichever path you choose, make sure every piece is actually worth someone’s scarce attention.