How do you spend your free time? If you’re like me, you consume content: films, tv shows, video games, books, YouTube videos, and short-form videos like TikToks and Reels. I often feel like I don’t have enough time in the day to consume all of the content that I enjoy, and the time that I do spend consuming content is time away from other pursuits, such as writing. This is certainly not a new phenomenon; I’m reminded of the Twilight Zone episode Time Enough at Last, where a man who loves to read is the only survivor of nuclear apocalypse and has all the time to read in the world (until, of course, his glasses break). There are many of us who would covet several uninterrupted hours of reading, but even if we wanted to we would not have enough time in our lifetimes to read every book that interested us. Yet new books are continuously being published, and naturally compete for the time and attention of potential readers. Where goods and services compete in the market to win our hard-earned dollars, content competes for our time. In this new digital age, content begets a new economic pattern that attempts to trap our attention for as long as possible.

Consuming entertainment-based content is often quite rewarding – I love to escape into the world of the novel I’m currently reading, or to let my brain shut off and rest while I scroll on TikTok. When I’m stressed, it’s comforting to slip into my PJs and watch a movie. Competition in the entertainment space can lead to the creation of some brilliant pieces of artistic expression (currently, I’m obsessed with the TV show Severance). However, the competition for your attention can turn toxic when tech companies build “dark patterns” into their apps. Dark patterns are features in an application that encourage users to take a specific action that will benefit the company; these can range from the innocuous to the rage-inducing. The infinite feed is one of the most consequential dark patterns that almost every social media application implements. Infinite feeds allow users to scroll from post to post (or video to video) without interruption. Every social media platform inherently wants to keep their users engaged with the content on that platform for as long as possible; infinite feeds allow users to scroll for hours without thinking about how much content they’ve consumed, rather than displaying a handful of posts on a single page and allowing the user the option to continue to the next page. While the user scrolls, a content algorithm analyzes their interaction with each video in order to determine the best video to show the user next; the ultimate goal is to reward the user with a video they will enjoy in order to keep them scrolling. This way of displaying content has made short-form video platforms like TikTok so successful at capturing users’ attention for long periods of time without the user being aware that their attention is being manipulated.

The “attention economy” incentivizes tech and entertainment companies to build their products with the sole intent to capture your attention wherever possible; this is done to strategically serve you ads that you will be more likely to interact with, or to sell you more content through subscription services. This model is built on the assumption of leisure time; when individuals are no longer tending to their responsibilities, they seek out entertainment. Leisure time, for most individuals today, is quite limited – usually to the hours of 5pm and 10pm on weekdays. However, if we are to buy the future that Silicon Valley is selling us, AI may be able to meaningfully automate thousands of jobs within the next decade. As our proportion of leisure time increases, the competition for our attention will intensify. This future could herald an unprecedented explosion in human creativity and knowledge production; however, in a post-scarcity society, time becomes the most valuable commodity there is. It is troubling that we are already witnessing the emergence of an economy poised to reward those content producers that are most effective at holding our attention hostage.

So what happens if all of our time becomes leisure time? How will we decide to spend it?

According to Dr. Brad Aeon, a time management training consultant, wealthier individuals in Ancient Greece experienced such freedom:

“Leisure was an active state of mind. Good leisure meant playing sports, learning music theory, debating qualified peers and doing philosophy. Leisure was not easy, but it was supposed to be gratifying.”

In the modern age, we would of course be free to pursue creative endeavors, to learn new concepts and skills, to socialize, travel, or enjoy new and fulfilling experiences. However, we would also have more time to spend on the pursuit of entertainment and consumption of content. Dr. Anna Lembke, renowned psychiatrist and author of “Dopamine Nation,” explains that the digital information environments we currently have take advantage of the reward center of our brain. This idea is also explained at length in the 2020 documentary “The Social Dilemma.”

What if dark patterns find their way into other forms of entertainment-based content? Will entertainment, much like our food, be processed and engineered to become as irresistible as possible?

The easiest way to ameliorate this future is to just avoid the “junk food” of entertainment. Today, that might include social media, reality TV, Marvel movies, or games that involve gambling or have addictive game loops. Instead of opening TikTok, read a book. If you crave mindless television, try turning on something more provocative or inspired. Attention will become the new currency, and it’s time we learn how to be financially literate. If we can all become more intentional about how we spend our attention, perhaps we can enjoy a society marked by “good” leisure (philosophy optional).