Implications of attention-based businesses
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School of Business |
Bachelor's thesis
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Authors
Date
2023
Department
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Mcode
Degree programme
Tieto- ja palvelujohtaminen
Language
en
Pages
25 + 3
Series
Abstract
The advent of social media has created an increasingly growing ecosystem of digital platforms that rely heavily and capitalize on human attention. The business models of attention-based businesses encourage platform developers to constantly seek new ways of drawing their customers towards their platforms and ultimately to be accessible to advertisers. Therefore, social media platform providers are fighting to teeth over how much time and engagement can they attain from their platform’s users. This study presents a descriptive review of the literature on attention-based business models and discusses the ethical issues concerning the development of persuasive technology. The thesis will focus on examining methods and consequences of attention-grabbing technologies in modern attention-based businesses, namely large social media businesses such as Meta, Twitter, and Alphabet. The review explores existing literature to identify the most topical issues at hand and maps open questions for future research. Theoretical background from psychology and behavioral economics are used to assess research findings from relevant literature related to – and around persuasive technology design and its influences. The literature shows that there are myriad biases and heuristics that social media platform providers are tapping into to maximize user engagement, even with undesirable costs to individuals and communities. Addiction, the spread of misinformation, and polarization are presented as key ramifications that harm users, undermine healthy public discourse, and fuel segregation. This thesis argues that intentionally addicting users for economic gains is wrong and that the harmful effects of persuasive technology outweigh the benefits. It provides an overview of how the current state of the attention economy is unfolding and presents transparency and dissolution of the power imbalance between end users and platform providers as possible alternatives to platforms maximizing engagement.Description
Thesis advisor
Hekkala, RiittaKeywords
attention, social media, algorithm, persuasive technology