Word.ws English Dictionary

attention economy

attention economy noun: an economic system where human attention is a scarce and monetized resource, driving competition among businesses, media, and digital platforms.

Noun

attention economy (countable and uncountable, plural attention economies)

  1. An economic system where human attention is a scarce and monetized resource, driving competition among businesses, media, and digital platforms.
    • Understanding and managing attention is now the single most important determinant of business success. Welcome to the attention economy.2001, Thomas H. Davenport, John C. Beck, The Attention Economy: Understanding the new currency of business, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, →ISBN, page 3
    • On this level, the practice of doing nothing has several tools to offer us when it comes to resisting the attention economy.2019, Jenny Odell, How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, Melville House, →ISBN

Examples of attention economy in a sentence

  • There will always be pockets that exist outside of the attention economy.2025 July 8, Ezra Klein, quoting Kyla Scanlon, “How the Attention Economy Is Devouring Gen Z — and the Rest of Us”, in The New York Times...
  • He’s not a fringe figure: he knows how to work the attention economy.2026 April 28, Arwa Mahdawi, “Is Tucker Carlson eyeing a 2028 presidential run?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
  • I wonder if the difference here is that, unlike the previous two seasons, Euphoria’s final turn exists in the “attention economy”, where algorithms reward controversial, polarizing figures.2026 April 29, Louis Staples, “Tradwives, sugar babies and OnlyFans: Euphoria’s misogyny feels like the manosphere’s wet dream”, in The...

Forms of attention economy

pluralattention economies

Origin of attention economy

Popularized by Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck in the book The Attention Economy (2001).

Questions about attention economy

What does attention economy mean?
Attention economy means an economic system where human attention is a scarce and monetized resource, driving competition among businesses, media, and digital platforms.
How do you use attention economy in a sentence?
There will always be pockets that exist outside of the attention economy.
What part of speech is attention economy?
Attention economy is a noun.
What is the plural of attention economy?
The plural of attention economy is attention economies.

Words near attention economy in the dictionary

  1. attention deficit disorder
  2. attention deficit disorders
  3. attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
  4. attention deficit hyperactivity disordered
  5. attention economies
  6. attention economy
  7. attention getter
  8. attention getters
  9. attention line
  10. attention lines
  11. attention seeker

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: attention economy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “attention economy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/attention_economy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.