digital wellbeing
Attention economy
The business model in which your attention is the product — apps are free because your hours are what's being sold.
The attention economy is the business model in which human attention is the scarce resource being harvested and sold. "Free" apps are free because you are not the customer — advertisers are, and your hours are the inventory.
The model explains otherwise puzzling design: infinite scroll, autoplay, streaks, and red badges all exist because a company's revenue rises with your time-on-device, whether or not that time serves you. Understanding this reframes the dumbphone decision: it is not self-denial, it is declining to be the product. You buy the phone; nobody rents your attention afterward.
Related Terms
View all →Digital minimalism
A philosophy of technology use: keep only the tools whose benefit outweighs their cost to your attention, and drop the rest.
Infinite scroll
A feed that loads forever, removing every natural stopping point — the design pattern that turns checking into losing an hour.
Variable reward
The slot-machine trick — unpredictable rewards — that makes checking your phone compulsive by design.