The Information-Attention Tradeoff: Toward an Understanding of the Fundamentals of Online Attention

The internet and social media play a critical role as information sources for a large majority of US adults. However, online platforms are not just informative spaces. They are competitive arenas that pursue clicks and views, which could lead to the spread of inaccurate information. This research provides new evidence that contributes to an increasingly important policy debate: how can we harness the advantages of the digital era while mitigating its risks? By examining how digital content is crafted to captivate audiences and how users allocate their attention in such domains, this research enhances our understanding of the fundamentals of online attention. These insights are used to test various strategies to enhance the informational value of content without compromising its appeal. The resulting findings will provide insights into the impact of social media on information dissemination in society. This research advances the study of information transmission and human attention, by developing a new, scalable experimental paradigm that combines field and lab experimental data. This paradigm expands existing paradigms based on sender-receiver games, resulting in a new methodological approach to study online attention and information. The proposed research combines behavioral data with text analysis and machine learning techniques, to comprehensively assess the multifaceted effects of the interaction between suppliers and consumers of information. Using the experimental data, the project tests interventions and develops a theoretical framework to elucidate the mechanisms by which attention is captured and allocated, ultimately shaping the resulting information transmission. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.