In a tech nation podcast Dr. Moira Gunn interviewed Tom Hayes about network culture. While the conversation was generally interesting the notion of being attention rich or poor really caught my attention. By this he meant that for those of us in what might be termed the connected world we suffer from an abundance of information to which we have to little time to attend. That is we are attention poor. While less connected individuals have a lot of attention that they are not using and are thus attention rich. This all relates to the attention economy first described in the 70's. As often described the attention economy means that producers of content will succeed to the extent that they can provide more information and less fill.
What peaked my interest in this was an experience I had a few months ago. We had developed a web site for providing information on a particular mental health related project to both family/consumers and professionals. The professionals to whom the site were shown were quite positive and interested in testing some of its features. However, none of them actually went on line later to do this testing. The family/consumers, on the other hand, were very enthusiastic sharing the site and information with others and wanting to push for its expansion.
From the processional's perspective - Since they were attention poor, having lots of content to which they needed to attend, this site did not really provide enough new information to warrant spending very much of their limited attention.
From the family/consumer's perspective - They were willing to invest their attention in it. Whether this was because they were attention rich and the cost minimal OR because we provided enough new information to overcome the attention cost of those who are attention poor, we do not now know. However, this would be an interesting test. Do we get higher utilization among those who are attention rich?
Another, perhaps more interesting, question would look at the digital divide through the lens of the attention economy. The poor are less likely to have access to the Internet. Does this mean that they would be attention rich and more accessible to sites that would meet their information needs? Is there a relationship between attention and poverty? Or do the day-to-day difficulties of living with poverty not allow someone the luxury to have any attention to spend even if they did have access?