The Architecture of Attention

Following in the footsteps of the Australian government, the UK government recently released its research briefing proposing a ban on social media for children. The report identifies the rationale behind such a ban, citing obvious harms such as exposure to child sexual abuse images, pornography, sexual content, cyberbullying, self-harm, and violent material. It is perhaps surprising that it is only in 2025 that we are beginning to see meaningful legislation that actually regulates the ways in which we use certain parts of the internet. Pornography in particular is beginning to see more and more restrictions, with bans on violent content and a long-overdue age verification mechanism. 

Yet despite the rising popularity of ‘dopamine detoxes’, and the emergence of focus apps as more people confront growing addictions to short form content, government policy has lagged behind. This subtler, yet arguably more pervasive, threat is being cloned from platform to platform, as every social media channel seems to have its own breed of short form churn. This threat is embedded into the structure of the internet. Content is to be mindlessly ingested, not engaged with, and this structure is beginning to seep into other areas too - one only has to consider the 'dumbing down' of television scripts in order to see how far reaching the impacts of second screens regurgitating short form content are. It is terrifying to think what these addictive snippets of dopamine must be doing to our brains in the long term, if we cannot even get through a twenty minute television episode.

However, the threat is more than neurological. It is democratic. The erosion of institutional journalism, replaced by a generation receiving their information and, crucially, their political news, from social media, is a serious challenge to democratic engagement. The rise in populism has persistently been connected with the consequences of the cost of living crisis, but such a view risks overlooking the psychological impact short form content has on us as political actors. 

Most of us consume information without verification, digesting a patchwork of AI-generated content, film snippets, two-times-speed ‘get ready with me’ videos. Every so often, a clip of Farage or Polanski appears, soundbitey enough to elicit a brief and shallow sentiment of agreement, before we scroll past to videos of high-protein meal prep. If mindless scrolling and political interrogation coalesce, critical thinking about politics ceases to exist. We find ourselves trapped in an ecosystem barren of critical analysis and attention. Such an ecosystem enables populism to thrive. There are obvious positives to the accessibility of political information via social media, but such arguments imply that we don't already have free, long form media, on both a local and a national level. Clips on social media are accessible because they are easier to consume - but critical engagement isn't supposed to be easy. 

It is perhaps tempting to feel that such a scathing view of short form content is characteristic of a Boomer-esque loathing of younger generations, but this generational disconnect is in itself a problem for our politics. At best, the government's communications are cringeworthy, but at worst they are failing altogether. There has been no shortage of criticism of Labour's communication strategy (thanks, in particular, to Alistair Campbell, who seems to think this is the cause of all Labour's woes), but what if sensible politics itself is unable to survive in the current ecosystem of short form churn? Policies that require explanation and reflection struggle to survive in an environment built for immediacy. Policies that need time to mature and space to breathe are often dismissed. Take digital ID. The clickbaity notion that ID cards are the first step towards 1984 being realised in the UK garners far more attention than the more mundane reality, that such a policy would likely have little impact on our personal freedoms. Indeed, it would likely have little impact on controlling immigration too. However the backlash goes to show that political reasoning can only really be reactive in this climate. This is what Labour's communications teams need to grapple with.

The irony is that a citizenry exposed to this constant churn of content seems to feel more educated than ever, with everybody staunchly for or against this policy or that on their social media stories. Research shows the opposite – 70% of young people knew nothing about their local MPs ahead of the previous general election. Social media is offering us the illusion of political understanding, but actually dumbing us down, as engagement with the political system is reduced to 15 second clips and recurring, contextless soundbites.

Democracy depends on the capacity to think beyond the immediate moment, to think in both the long and the short term about what kind of government policies our country needs. Austerity was the pinnacle of this: short term suffering for long term stability, a policy that persisted through immense controversy because its rationale was for the long term. It is hardly possible to imagine Starmer getting through such a restrictive economic package, given Labour's series of dizzying U-turns necessitated by far less extreme budget cuts. Truss' mini-budget is an exercise in the opposite – override all political and economic context, fix the world now – the political embodiment of a 15 second TikTok, gone wrong (shock). Somebody ought to check Truss' screen time.

This digital culture that pulls attention into the present moment on our screens clearly means that we cannot stretch our attention beyond the here and now. Starmer's U-turns embody this. If serious politics is to thrive, policy must deal with the architecture of attention itself. Bans aimed at protecting children are obviously vital, and bafflingly overdue. But the government should go further, and not merely regulate content, but the digital environment itself. If it does not, politics will disintegrate into dopamine-driven soundbites, leaving nuance, reflection and true engagement by the wayside.

Image: Flickr/Michael Nuccitelli, Psy.D.

Licence: public domain

Image cropped at top and bottom to occlude text.