Attention Catcher: Media Creation and Social Media Networking Sites

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Web 2.0 and limited attention
The ability to concentrate may have fallen, with the greater expansion of technology including the social media platforms. The drop in social media user attention has occurred at a time, when there are diverse options to chose from, but the users are also bombarded with a lot of information. In Streams of content: limited attention, Dana Boyd highlighted that there are now various streams of information, where people can choose among the different content available and attention is disrupted numerous times. Christine Rosen’s Virtual Friendship and the New Narcissism highlighted that people have an opportunity to make their self portraits and online profile using social media based on what they want to be perceived. Social media platforms connect people to many users, but the bonds are not strong and attention to small things, places and people where relations remain impersonal.
The constantly moving flow of information makes it difficult to be attentive to things that matter and it is the content providers who use the users’ information to their advantage. Rosen pointed out (260) “the timeless human desire for attention that emerges as the dominant theme of these vast virtual galleries”. People increasingly curate themselves on the internet as today’s social media thrive on people revealing their offline identities, and seeking attention. The social media networks users can generate content, but they at times place too much emphasis on curated content, which limits attention to other content and people. This is further complicated by the fast disseminating of information, that users do not keep track of the information. “The opportunities for media creation have been rising for decades, but the Internet provided new mechanisms through which people could make their own content available” (Boyd 272). The social media platforms influence interest and discussions on certain topics, and as more people rely on the platforms there is likely to be low attention span for the most important things as people focus more on being recognized and choosing when to interact with virtual friends. One of the challenges with technology and information flow is that people mostly pay attention to accessing content in their language. As such, some ideas are likely to dominate the social networking platforms based on the users’ interests and language preference. Information brokers are increasingly powerful distributors on the networks and influence the information that is filtered, which means that people then pay attention to certain content they are exposed to. Technology has made it easier to connect with likeminded people, it is easier to portray false impressions and social media users choose when to connect with others if this is convenient for them.
There are various social networking platforms for niche and peculiar interests, but third parties are mostly interested in getting the users attention to influence and persuade them.
“Social networking sites are also fertile ground for those who make it their lives’ work to get your attention—namely, spammers, marketers, and politicians” (Rosen 264). The a...