A limited time offer

As advertised, our young family had a whale of a time at Marineland in Niagara Falls. It was a fantastic day with our little ones, but so expensive! I handed over $20 for a couple of soft drinks and pocketed my $2 change. We meandered through the gift shop. The aroma of popcorn filled my nostrils. Local must-see attractions flashed from TV screens. Shelves overflowed with trinkets, T-shirts and inflatable dolphins. Absorbing the sensory riot around me, I gripped the two coins in my pocket and thought, “They won’t give up until they’ve siphoned every last dollar out of me.” (Not that $2 would buy much, even in those days.)

Little did I know that someone had already named that style of marketing. Nor did I suspect that within a few short years something called the Internet would launch our whole culture into a pervasive glut of information and enticements, all clamoring for our consideration.

Half a century ago Herbert A. Simon, a psychologist and economist, recognised the implications of information overload:

“. . . a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

It’s literally “attention deficit” – limited attention vs. boundless information. We must pick and choose. By the mid ‘90s information overload was identified as an economic issue. Our attention had become a valuable commodity, a currency in its own right – hence the term, Attention Economy. Advertising adopted an elegant strategy – AIDA – attention, interest, desire, action.

Marketing goldmine

Internet access bloomed like daisies by an outhouse, accompanied by a deluge of information, not all of it reliable. But who has time to sort fact from fiction? Globally, adults are said to spend an average of six hours and 40 minutes online daily, two and a half of those hours on social media. A marketing goldmine.

Reading assorted blogs in the morning I’m bombarded with ads for hearing aids, dental implants, comfy shoes for bunion sufferers and miraculously supportive foundation garments to bolster sagging assets. Algorithms have apparently pegged my age bracket and decided these items should interest me. Targeted advertising. Thank you, cookies. At least they’ve stopped inviting me to check out “hot Russian babes in your area.”

As I delete countless messages each day without opening them, I wonder how many times my email address has been sold.

All of this “free” information comes at a high price. Social media addiction is a thing. The impact on mental health is undeniable. A steady stream of (never good) news increases anxiety exponentially. And yet we struggle to simply walk away from the source of so much stress. After all, this is what connects us to our culture. Online I often feel like that young mother again, tightly clutching my meagre resources and hoping the attention vampires don’t suck all the blood out of my system.

What’s a pilgrim to do? Take every thought captive for Christ. That’s what. Sounds easy. It’s not. But it is necessary. Awareness is half the battle. Walking by faith requires attention to detail. It’s never one and done. Consistent focus on the Lord pays generous dividends. And he never withdraws his attention from me. Now that’s a good deal.

Life is a limited time offer. Pay attention!