The generation that’s ‘always on the phone’ is now giving a sociocultural diagnosis of the systems that keep us hooked but distracted. From doomscrolling to context collapse via rage bait and AI slop, we are being scrolled through.
Our time and attention are being mined and monetised through the very platforms we rely on for enabling connectivity, creativity, capability and change. We run the attention economy and we bear the costs, too (read: brain rot).
These terms are not just slang or memes, but a vocabulary describing our everyday experience. As a digital native navigating algorithms and a researcher exploring the many layers of socio-digital inclusion, this lexicon is both concerning and optimistic. It confirms what data shows. But it also reflects consciousness which is fundamental for building a responsible digital future.
Research shows that the average attention span has decreased from2.5 minutes in 2000 to less than 47 seconds today. Half of the screen interactions do not last as long as 40 seconds. Brain rot, defined as the “numbing effect of constant distractions”, is, thus, naming a measurable cognitive harm. Nearly 70 per cent of young adults perceive social media use fragmenting focus. That’s when almost four billion of them spend over six hours with a screen every day. Why? The mechanics are rather simple.
Platforms operate as what Tim Wu calls attention merchants. They have identified a valuable but scarce resource (human attention), developed technology to capture it at scale (algorithms, feeds, engagement optimisation), commodified it through datafication and externalised costs (declining attention spans, cognitive fragmentation) while maximising profits through advertising. They earn from engagement not subscription.
Engagement drives revenues and research shows that emotional intensity, particularly negative emotions, generate higher engagement. Studies have found that users tend to react most strongly to posts that are controversial, offensive, or misleading. Algorithms often amplify such posts as rage baits to keep people clicking, commenting and scrolling.
The rise of Generative AI has compounded the challenge with what’s called AI Slop: low-quality content that’s mass-produced solely to mint ad revenue. According to Graphite, an SEO firm, over half of the new web articles are AI generated. The implications extend beyond scrolling through social media feeds. It means that students, professionals and knowledge seekers increasingly find themselves navigating systems optimised for generating revenues not knowledge sharing or insights.
These aren’t inevitable technological outcomes or failures of individual attentional discipline, though. Rather, they reflect choices about business models and technology design that prioritises engagement and profits over other possible good. And from a development perspective, these everyday experiences form an invisible layer of socio-digital inequalities. That’s not because some people have more cognitive capital compared to others, but because the attention economy creates an exclusionary information ecosystem.
Those with economic, social, and educational resources can afford premium, ad-free digital spaces. These environments are designed to minimise ads and support intentional knowledge sharing and socialisation. Everyone else finds themselves braving a polluted environment optimised not for connectivity or learning, but for engagement through outrage and overload, exposure to which, as research shows, not only leaves us angrier and fatigued but impairs attentional capacity.
The matter takes on particular significance in the Pakistani context, where we face a dire dilemma every day. We celebrated 200 million telecom subscriptions, a 36-percentage-point increase in household internet access over five years, and a thousand YouTube channels surpassing the one-million-subscribers mark in 2025. There are more of us online, our creator economy is booming, and our global reach, along with increasing social media revenues, presents economic opportunities across the social spectrum.
However, like most developing countries, we are a mobile-first economy. And for many, algorithm-driven, short-form content and entertainment-centric platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Facebook represent their primary, sometimes only, gateway to the digital world. The question then becomes: what sort of digital environments are we welcoming them to and what inclusion really means for them and their future?
Connectivity holds real promise: it can bring educational equity to underserved areas, create economic opportunities for otherwise undervalued (creative) talent and increase civic participation. However, an ecosystem that operates on quick judgement and emotional reactivity diminishes the capacity required for substantive learning and thoughtful discourse.
Increasing broadband coverage and digital inclusion represent an inflection point for Pakistan. Our trajectory will depend on how we choose to engage with it, as individuals, as communities, and as a country. There are no neat solutions, though. Digital literacy is foundational but insufficient when technology design does not support wellbeing. Regulation often translates into restrictions and locally developed alternatives networks risk limiting exposure and connection. Questions about user autonomy and content governance remain open and contested.
And that’s why the new vocabulary matters. Naming and researching experiences like brain rot, rage bait, and so on, isn’t a call for top-down controls. Instead, these are analytical exercises that make the social costs of an economic model visible. When individuals and communities realise that the cost for ‘free’ access is their ‘attention’, transparency in practice and alternative models for connectivity and wellbeing may become possible.
Human attention is a scarce resource. How we treat it, extract it or nourish it, shapes what’s possible. The question isn’t how many will be online by 2030, but what future we are building, one 47-second interaction at a time.
The writer is a digital inclusion researcher at the Graduate Institute of Development, Lahore School of Economics. She can be reached at: [email protected]
