What is attention economy?

Example: You unlock your phone to check the weather. The home screen shows Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and a news app — all above the fold, all with red notification badges. Fourteen minutes later you're watching a video about a topic you don't care about, the weather still unchecked. You didn't choose to spend fourteen minutes on YouTube. Your home screen chose for you. The apps you place at thumb-reach are the behaviors you'll perform most often — not because you decided to, but because the environment made them the path of least resistance.

This concept is part of Choice Architecture in the How to Think curriculum.