Claire Coady and James Wickham explore the concept of attention, its significance in the modern world, and the challenges posed by the attention economy. They discuss how information overload affects decision-making, societal implications of attention fragmentation, and the stressors that contribute to mental fatigue. 

Show notes: Age of Attention Scarcity whitepaper: https://open.substack.com/pub/attentionscarcity/p/the-age-of-attention-scarcity 

700-1200 ads per day: https://www.eskimi.com/blog/ad-exposure-research 

Brain has finite capacity: “The Unbearable Slowness of Being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?” Jieyu Zheng and Markus Meister, 2024 (brain operates at 10 bits/s, but receives 1000s bits/s of stimuli to process) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39694032/ 
“The Magical Mystery Four: How is Working Memory Capacity Limited, and Why?” Neil Cowan, 2010 (Neil Cowan tested Miller’s 1956 of ‘seven plus or minus two’, and showed working memory was actually 3-4 items at once) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2864034/ 
“Attention and Capacity Limits in Perception: A Cellular Metabolism Account” Bruckmaier et al, 2020 (energy given to the brain is capped at around 20%) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32747442/ 

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Paperback https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16591/9780141033570 Ebook https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16591/9780141918921 

Wintering by Katherine May. Paperback https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16591/9781846045998 Ebook https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16591/9781473562882 

Katherine May, author of Wintering, has a lovely newsletter on rest (important for attention!) https://substack.com/@katherinemay 

The Principles of Psychology by William James Paperback https://uk.bookshop.org/a/16591/9780486203812 
William James - Attention quote: https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/03/25/william-james-attention/