Attention Hijacking

What it is

Deliberately capturing and redirecting public or individual attention away from important matters toward trivial, sensational, or manufactured concerns.

How it works

Real-world examples

• •Political scandals timed to distract from legislative actions.
• •Celebrity controversies dominating news cycles during policy debates.
• •Social media platforms designing features that capture attention regardless of content quality.

Ethical guidelines

How to defend against it

References

1. Simon, H. A. (1971). Designing organizations for an information-rich world. In M. Greenberger (Ed.), Computers, Communications, and the Public Interest, 37–72. Johns Hopkins Press
   Source of the observation that a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention — the finite-attention premise of the entry.
2. Wu, T. (2016). The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. Alfred A. Knopf
   History of the business model that captures and resells attention regardless of content value — the commercial form in the entry.
3. King, G., Pan, J., & Roberts, M. E. (2017). How the Chinese government fabricates social media posts for strategic distraction, not engaged argument. American Political Science Review, 111(3), 484–501
   Evidence that a government's fabricated posts are timed to distract from sensitive events rather than to argue — the strategic form in the entry.