Push and Pull: A Framework for Measuring Attentional Agency

We propose a framework for measuring attentional agency - the ability to allocate one's attention according to personal desires, goals, and intentions - on digital platforms. Platforms extend people's limited powers of attention by extrapolating their preferences to large collections of previously unconsidered informational objects. However, platforms typically also allow people to influence one another's attention. We introduce a formal framework for measuring how much a given platform empowers people to both pull information into their own attentional field and push information into the attentional fields of others. We also use these definitions to shed light on the implications of generative foundation models, which enable users to bypass the implicit "attentional bargain" that underlies embedded advertising and other methods for capturing economic value from informational goods. We conclude with a set of policy strategies that can be used to understand and reshape the distribution of attentional agency online.