How many other things are you doing right now while you’re reading this piece？ Are you also checking your email， glancing at your Twitter feed， and updating your Facebook page？ What five years ago David Foster Wallace labelled “Total Noise”— “the seething static of every particular thing and experience， and one’s total freedom of infinite choice about what to choose to attend to”1—is today just part of the texture of living on a planet that will， by next year， boast one mobile phone for each of its seven billion inhabitants. We are all amateur attention economists， hoarding and bartering our moments2—or watching them slip away down the cracks of a thousand YouTube clips.
　　If you’re using a free online service， the adage3 goes， you are the product. It’s an arresting4 line， but one that deserves putting more precisely： it’s not you， but your behavioural data and the quantifiable facts of your engagement that are constantly blended for sale， with the aggregate of every single interaction （yours included） becoming a mechanism for ever-more-finely tuning the business of attracting and retaining users.
　　Consider the confessional slide show released in December 2012 by Upworthy， the “website for viral content”， which detailed the mechanics of its online attention-seeking. To be truly viral， they note， content needs to make people want to click on it and share it with others who will also click and share. This means selecting stuff with instant appeal—and then precisely calibrating5 the summary text， headline， excerpt， image and tweet that will spread it. This in turn means producing at least 25 different versions of your material， testing the best ones， and being prepared to constantly tweak6 every aspect of your site. To play the odds， you also need to publish content constantly，in quantity， to maximise the likelihood of a hit—while keeping one eye glued to Facebook. That’s how Upworthy got its most viral hit ever， under the headline “Bully Calls News Anchor Fat， News Anchor Destroys Him on Live TV”， with more than 800，000 Facebook likes and 11 million views on YouTube.

　　But even Upworthy’s efforts pale into insignificance compared with the algorithmic might of sites such as Yahoo！—which， according to the American author and marketer Ryan Holiday， tests more than 45，000 combinations of headlines and images every five minutes on its home page. Much as corporations incrementally improve the taste， texture and sheer enticement of food and drink by measuring how hard it is to stop eating and drinking them， the actions of every individual online are fed back into measures where more inexorably means better： more readers， more viewers， more exposure， more influence， more ads， more opportunities to unfurl the integrated apparatus of gathering and selling data.7 　　Attention， thus conceived， is an inert and finite resource， like oil or gold： a tradable asset that the wise manipulator auctions off to the highest bidder， or speculates upon to lucrative effect.8 There has even been talk of the world reaching “peak attention”， by analogy to peak oil production， meaning the moment at which there is no more spare attention left to spend.
　　This is one way of conceiving of our time. But it’s also a quantification that tramples across other， qualitative questions—a fact that the American author Michael H Goldhaber recognised some years ago， in a piece for Wired magazine called “Attention Shoppers！” （1997）. Attention， he argued， “comes in many forms： love， recognition， heeding， obedience， thoughtfulness9， caring， praising， watching over， attending to one’s desires， aiding， advising， critical appraisal， assistance in developing new skills， et cetera. An army sergeant ordering troops doesn’t want the kind of attention Madonna seeks. And neither desires the sort I do as I write this.”
　　For all the sophistication of a world in which most of our waking hours are spent consuming or interacting with media， we have scarcely advanced in our understanding of what attention means. What are we actually talking about when we base both business and mental models on a “resource” that， to all intents and purposes， is fabricated from scratch every time a new way of measuring it comes along？
　　In Latin， the verb attendere—from which our word“attention” derives—literally means to stretch towards. A compound of ad （“towards”） and tendere （“to stretch”）， it invokes an archetypal10 image： one person bending towards another in order to attend to them， both physically and mentally.
　　Attending is closely connected to anticipation. Soldiers snap to attention to signify readiness and respect—and to embody it. Unable to read each others’ minds， we demand outward shows of mental engagement. Teachers shout “Pay attention！”at slumped11 students whose thoughts have meandered， calling them back to the place they’re in. Time， presence and physical attentiveness are our most basic proxies12 for something ultimately unprovable： that we are understood.
　　The best teachers， one hopes， don’t shout at their students—because they are skilled at wooing13 as well as demanding the best efforts of others. For the ancient Greeks and Romans， this wooing was a sufficiently fine art in itself to be the central focus of education. As the manual on classical rhetoric Rhetoricaad Herennium put it 2，100 years ago： “We wish to have our hearer receptive， welldisposed， and attentive （docilem， benivolum， attentum）.” To be civilised was to speak persuasively about the things that mattered： law and custom， loyalty and justice. 　　Underpinning this was neither honour nor idealism， but pragmatism embodied in a five-part process. Come up with a compelling proposition， arrange its elements in elegant sequence， polish your style， commit the result to memory or media， then pitch14 your delivery for maximum impact. Short of an ancient “share” button， the similarities to Upworthy’s recipe for going viral are impressive. Cicero15， to whom Rhetoricaad Herennium is traditionally attributed， also counted flattery， bribery， favour-bargaining and outright untruth among the tools of his trade. What mattered was results.
　　However， when it comes to automated systems for garnering attention， there’s more at play than one person listening to another； and the processes of measurement and persuasion have some uncannily16 totalising tendencies. As far as getting the world to pay attention to me online， either I play by the rules of the system—likes， links， comments， clicks， shares， retweets—or I become ineligible17 for any of its glittering prizes.
　　There’s a similarly reductive exaltation in defining attention as the contents of a global reservoir， slopping interchangeably between the brains of every human being alive.18 Where is the space， here， for the idea of attention as a mutual construction more akin to empathy than budgetary expenditure—or for those unregistered moments in which we attend to ourselves， to the space around us， or to nothing at all？
　　We watch a 30-second ad in exchange for a video； we solicit a friend’s endorsement19； we freely pour sentence after sentence， hour after hour， into status updates and stock responses. None of this depletes our bank balances. Yet its cumulative cost， while hard to quantify， affects many of those things we hope to put at the heart of a happy life： rich relationships， rewarding leisure， meaningful work， peace of mind.
　　What kind of attention do we deserve from those around us， or owe to them in return？ What kind of attention do we ourselves deserve， or need， if we are to be “us” in the fullest possible sense？ These aren’t questions that even the most finely tuned popularity contest can resolve. Yet， if contentment and a sense of control are partial measures of success， many of us are selling ourselves far too cheap.
　　Are you still paying attention？ I can look for signs， but in the end I can’t control what you think or do. And this must be the beginning of any sensible discussion. No matter who or what tells you otherwise， you have the perfect right to ignore me—and to decide for yourself what waits in each waking moment. 　　我们以观看30秒的广告作为代价才能看到视频；我们渴求朋友的点赞；我们毫无顾虑地将一个句子接一个句子、一个小时接一个小时倒进状态更新和毫无新意的回复中。以上任何一件事情都不会耗尽我们的银行账户。然而，其积累起来的成本，虽然难以量化，却会影响到许多对于幸福生活所必需的核心事情：丰富的人际关系、有益的闲暇、有意义的工作、心灵的宁静。
　　我们应该从周围的人那里得到什么样的注意力，又或是欠他们什么样的注意力呢？如果我们要成为真正意义上的“我们”，我们自己应该得到什么样的注意力，或者需要什么样的注意力？这些问题即使是经过最精细的调整的人气比赛也不能解决。然而，如果满足感和控制感是成功的部分衡量标准，那么我们中的很多人都以太低廉的价格把自己卖了。
　　你还在付出注意力吗？我可以找寻迹象，但最终我无法控制你的想法或者行为。这必须是任何理智的讨论的开始。无论是谁或者什么告诉你不同的意见，你完全有权忽视我——自行决定自己在每个醒着的时刻要干什么。
　　1. David Foster Wallace： 戴维·福斯特·华莱士（1962—2008），美国小说家，著有《无尽的玩笑》等作品。他在文学上极富造诣。内容上，他一直以巨大的好奇心关注这个物质的世界，以及生活在这个世界的人们的感受，尤其是那些生活在20世纪末的美国人；形式上，与20世纪80年代流行的简约主义不同，华莱士非常热爱繁复的长句子，并且喜爱甚至比正文更绵长的脚注和尾注，这成了他作品的显著标志之一；seething：无处不在的；static： 静电干扰产生的噪音。
　　2. hoard： 积聚，囤积；barter： 物物交换。
　　3. adage： 谚语，格言。
　　4. arresting： 引人注意的。
　　5. calibrate： 定标，校准。
　　6. tweak： 稍稍调整。
　　7. incrementally： 递增地；enticement： 诱惑；inexorably： // 不可阻挡的，不容变更的；unfurl： 展开；apparatus：// 装置，仪器。
　　8. inert： 惰性的，不活泼的；auction off： 拍卖；lucrative： 获利多的，赚钱的。
　　9. thoughtfulness： 沉思默想。
　　10. archetypal： 原型的。
　　11. slump： （因睡着或昏迷等）弯着身子坐。
　　12. proxy： 替代。
　　13. woo： 争取，努力说服。
　　14. pitch： 推销，争取支持。
　　15. Cicero： 马库斯·图留斯·西塞罗（Marcus Tullius Cicero，前106—前43年），古羅马著名政治家、演说家、雄辩家、法学家和哲学家。
　　16. uncanny： 奇怪的，费解的。
　　17. ineligible： 无资格的，不合格的。
　　18. exaltation： 提升，颂扬；slop： 倒出，使泼出。
　　19. endorsement： 公开的支持，认可。