Attention is the fundamental scarcity in the information age.
The underlying attention-scarcity argument is Herbert Simon's from 1971. Rheingold's contribution is applying it to the attention people give each other rather than to information processing.
In practice
- A dinner where the phones are in coat pockets runs an hour longer than the same group with phones face-down on the table.
- Rheingold's contribution is to apply it to the attention people give each other, which is why a phone on the table changes a conversation.
- Standing
- The underlying attention-scarcity argument is Herbert Simon's.
- Subject
- Communication & Media
- Essay
- The folk laws of argument and attention