I found the phrase “consolidated attention produces fewer targets to exploit” really interesting. It makes a lot of sense, business would want a large audience to get as much attention as possible. These free social apps are no longer developed for people around the world to keep in touch or to have connections. It’s become a shopping mall (tiktok shop, instagram shop, facebook marketplace) with the biggest ads ever. It’s basically just ad after ad, hoping to get the attention of a potential consumer.
I also find it interesting that a lot of the social apps were the ones that people were unhappy with. In my opinion, I completely understand. These social apps provide a platform for everyone and a lot of negativity can be highlighted which causes doom scrolling. I try to not do that anymore, but I can see how that puts a lot of these apps on top of the unhappy scale.