Managing Attention in the Age of (Mis)information Overload

Attention is the ultimate scarce resource in today’s overcrowded markets. As the flood of information and misinformation raises, the collective attention span seems to diminish. In just three years the average life time of popular social media topics fell from 17.5 to 11.9 hours (Lorenz-Spreen, Mønsted, Hövel, & Lehmann, 2019) and we should expect this development to continue as the volume of information continues to grow. Consequently, understanding how to attract, retain, and guide people’s attention is paramount for the success of many businesses and the increasing recognition of the value of attention has led to the emergence of the so-called “attention economy” (Davenport & Beck, 2001).

Unfortunately, inattention is ubiquitous: A large number of people actively avoid information from industry and policy makers that could benefit themselves such as calorie, health, or nutrition information (Nordström et al., 2020; Reisch et al., 2021; Thunström et al., 2016; Woolley & Risen, 2021), but also information that could benefit others such as CO2 emissions, animal welfare, or unethical production conditions (Bell et al., 2017; Edenbrandt et al., 2021; Reisch et al., 2021). People who are inattentive to such information are more likely to behave in ways that harm themselves (Thunström et al., 2016) or harm others (Dana et al., 2007). Inattention can also harm society at large, such as when individuals or social groups turn a blind eye to scientific facts about climate change, vaccination, or immigration leading to the spread of misinformation (Shalvi et al., 2022; van der Linden, 2022).

Course leader

Jacob Lund Orquin

Target group

Bachelor's level

Fee info

EUR 346: TBA
EUR 730: TBA

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No scholarships available

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