Agency - What deserves our attention?

Vanessa and I were recently speaking to a company that was offering some service provision around "Digital Marketing". It's a curious term, which commands respect from me, simply because I have no idea what it actually means. I think it might be a buzz-phrase that we just need to have access to, conversationally. It deals mainly with harnessing the might of Social Media.

Digital Marketing is a quiet power, that sits beneath almost everything we scroll and scan and click. A power that determines reach, and influence. To be seen or not be seen - that is the question... that Digital Marketing is supposed to answer. It is always there, shaping the direction of our days in subtle but profound ways.

So anyway... the very nice lady we were speaking with, pointed out at random, that the attention span of "the average human" (whatever that is) has dropped to around 20 seconds - depending on who you ask, methinks..

Of course I was quick to have her admit that this is a bit misleading, as it must surely be context dependent. I mean if I gave you two pieces of paper - one with a treasure map showing the location of a chest of Gold coins, and another with statistics on roadside pollution, I know you would spend more than 20 seconds on one of them.

But regardless of the context of the article, or the advert, essay or treasure map, this attention span is what digital marketers try to capture. They need us to spend more time looking - to contemplate and click. They need us to give away our power and surrender somewhat, our moment-to-moment ability to choose where we place our attention. That power and that choice, we refer to as our agency.

Agency is broadly defined as the capacity for individuals to act independently, make their own free choices, and impose these choices on the world to shape their own lives. It supposedly represents the power to be an active participant in our own existence, rather than a passive recipient of general circumstances and the whole "et cetera" of life.

Because attention - that natural human response now so coveted and commoditised, is not passive. It is not something that simply happens to us. It is directed and steered. It's a choice we make. And in making that choice, and choosing that direction lies our agency.

So what has shifted? Because something certainly has shifted... When did this all happen? I didn't know my attention span was sick, let alone dying...

Our attention spans, which were once capable of depth, of immersion, of staying power, seem to have become dramatically shortened and wholly fragmented. Pulled in a hundred directions at once. And it's not because we lack discipline, or we have lost the ability to choose, it just seems like we are living in an environment designed specifically to interrupt us.

We live in a busy, noisy society that competes relentlessly for our attention. Headlines, notifications, opinions, urgency - each one presenting itself as vitally important to our day and our understanding; each one asking, often unconsciously, to be let in. And over time, without even noticing, we begin to hand our agency over.

Not in grand, white flag-wavy gestures, but in small acts of surrender. A glance at this. A scroll of that. Taking in the absolute minumum. Just enough to justify moving on to the next thing. Until all that once held our focus with ease, now struggles to keep it beyond those sacred 20 seconds.

We skim instead of settling. We react instead of reflecting. We consume instead of considering. And slowly, almost invisibly, our capacity to choose becomes entangled with our habit of response. Typically, of course, the great excuse we all lean into is that "it is not because we are weak, it's because we're human..." Really?.. Because it is easier to react than to choose? Easier to be pulled than to pause? Aparently so.. But that pause is where our agency lives and breathes. In the small, almost imperceptible moment where we ask: Does this deserve my attention?

I mean, listen..not everything does. Not every opinion needs to be absorbed. Not every piece of information needs to be processed. That is not my point. What I am suggesting is that the

more we allow in without even a shadow of genuine discernment, the more diluted our attention become, until the point where we find ourselves scattered, overwhelmed and totally disconnected from what actually matters to us. This is the quiet-but-real cost of a shortened attention span. Not just distraction, but disconnection. From depth and presence and from ourselves.

Protecting our agency is the act of returning. Returning to intention. Returning to choice.

It is the quiet decision to redirect our focus toward what nourishes us, rather than what depletes. What aligns with us, rather than distracts. And, by the by, this is not about control. It is not about shutting out the world or going "off grid". It is simply about becoming a bit more deliberate. About reclaiming our capacity to stay. To listen with attention. To think with intention.

And what should emerge in its place? Clarity and a feeling of groudedness. A sort of better sense of self that is the product of choice, and not the net result of all we have skimmed through in 24 hours. This, dear reader, is agency. Not a concept - an actual practice

I think there is a common enough expression relating to "It doesn't deserve my attention.." or something like that. But it's a question that we might have stopped asking.. The question odf what deserves my attention right now? - and perhaps more importantly:What doesn't?

Because in a world that will always ask for more of us, agency is not about giving more.

It is about choosing. So that is the challenge. Try to be a bit more discerning. Choose what you read, not how much you gloss over and skim through. Quality over quantity.

Because where attention goes, life follows. And agency is remembering that we get to decide.