Chapter 1 Exercises: The Attention Economy

These exercises are organized in five tiers of increasing cognitive demand, following a modified Bloom's Taxonomy framework. Work through them in order; earlier tiers build vocabulary and comprehension that later tiers require.

Tier 1 — Recall

These exercises test your ability to retrieve specific facts, definitions, and concepts directly stated in the chapter. If you can answer these without reopening the text, you have a solid factual foundation.

Exercise 1.1 Who first articulated the concept of attention scarcity as an economic problem, and in what year did he do so? Quote the specific passage from the chapter that captures his core insight.

Exercise 1.2 What does CPM stand for? What does it measure, and what does "mille" refer to? Give an example of how CPM is used in a transaction between a platform and an advertiser.

Exercise 1.3 Define DAU and MAU. What is the stickiness ratio, and how is it calculated? Explain in one or two sentences why this ratio is considered a primary indicator of habit formation.

Exercise 1.4 What is "behavioral surplus" as defined by Shoshana Zuboff? Distinguish it from behavioral data that serves the user directly, using the chapter's framing.

Exercise 1.5 What is "time-on-platform," and why did it displace click-through rate as the dominant engagement metric? Name at least two problems with CTR that time-on-platform was designed to address.

Tier 2 — Comprehension

These exercises require you to explain cause-and-effect relationships, translate concepts into your own words, and demonstrate understanding of the mechanisms described in the chapter.

Exercise 2.1 Explain the logical chain connecting CPM pricing, DAU/MAU ratios, and platform design decisions. Why does a platform that monetizes through advertising have a financial incentive to maximize daily return visits? Walk through the chain step by step.

Exercise 2.2 The chapter traces the evolution of advertising-supported media from the penny press through digital social media. Identify at least three consistent elements that appear in every iteration of this model, and explain what changed with each transition (print to broadcast; broadcast to search; search to social media).

Exercise 2.3 The chapter describes the shift "from measuring past engagement to predicting future engagement" as a shift from a passive to an active advertising system. Explain what this means in concrete terms. How is predicting future engagement different from measuring past engagement, and why does that difference matter?

Exercise 2.4 Why does CPM vary so widely across different audiences and contexts? Using the chapter's examples, explain why a B2B decision-maker on LinkedIn might generate a CPM of $100+ while a general-audience impression on Instagram might generate $5-10. What economic logic drives this variation?

Exercise 2.5 The chapter argues that "most engaging" and "most beneficial" are not the same thing, and that platforms have limited incentive to care about the difference. Explain the mechanism behind this claim. What would need to be true for a platform to have a strong incentive to align engagement with user benefit?

Exercise 2.6 Zuboff distinguishes between two kinds of data exchange. Explain both categories and why the distinction matters. What did users implicitly consent to, according to Zuboff, and what did they not meaningfully consent to?

Exercise 2.7 The chapter identifies five specific asymmetries between platforms and users (scale of engineering investment, data asymmetry, expertise asymmetry, feedback loop asymmetry, switching cost asymmetry). Choose any two and explain specifically how each creates an advantage for the platform relative to the individual user.

Exercise 2.8 The chapter argues that dark patterns are "the logical endpoint" of the attention economy rather than aberrant behavior. Reconstruct the six-step logical chain the chapter uses to make this argument. Do you find each step in the chain convincing? If you disagree with any step, explain your objection.

Tier 3 — Application

These exercises ask you to apply chapter concepts to new examples and scenarios not discussed in the text. This requires taking a concept and recognizing where and how it operates in unfamiliar contexts.

Exercise 3.1 Apply the CPM framework to a hypothetical scenario. A health insurance company wants to target adults aged 55-65 with household incomes above $100,000 who have recently searched for information about retirement. Based on the principles in the chapter, would you expect the CPM for this audience to be closer to $10, $50, or $150? Justify your estimate with specific reference to the factors that influence CPM pricing.

Exercise 3.2 Benjamin Day launched The New York Sun in 1833 as a one-cent newspaper. In what ways does Spotify's free tier (with ads) follow the same economic logic? In what ways does it differ? What is Spotify selling to advertisers, and how does it price that product?

Exercise 3.3 Consider a hypothetical new social media platform, Nexus, that launches with a subscription model ($5/month, no advertising). Apply the DAU/MAU framework from the chapter. How does the absence of advertising change the platform's incentive structure? Would you expect Nexus to face the same pressures to maximize time-on-platform? Why or why not?

Exercise 3.4 — Quantitative Platform X reports 250 million MAU and 120 million DAU. Platform Y reports 80 million MAU and 60 million DAU. Calculate the stickiness ratio for each platform. Based solely on these metrics, which platform would you expect to command a higher per-user valuation, and why? What additional information would you want before making a confident valuation judgment?

Exercise 3.5 The chapter introduces "dark patterns" as design choices that work against users' interests while serving platform interests. Identify three specific features of any social media platform you use regularly, and categorize each as either (a) primarily serving user interests, (b) primarily serving platform interests, or (c) serving both. Justify each categorization with reference to the chapter's framework.

Exercise 3.6 The chapter argues that Simon's 1971 insight about attention scarcity applies to the current digital environment. Apply his framework to a specific contemporary scenario: a university student attempting to study for a final exam while their phone is within reach. Identify the specific attention-capturing mechanisms at play and explain them in terms of the attention economy.

Exercise 3.7 The chapter notes that fourth-quarter CPMs run 30-50% higher than the annual average due to holiday advertising competition. Apply this seasonal dynamic to the following: how would you expect a social media platform's incentives around content recommendation to shift in October-December compared to February-March? Would you expect the platform to serve users differently during peak advertising periods? What would the attention economy logic predict?

Exercise 3.8 — Quantitative An Instagram advertiser targets women aged 25-44 interested in luxury fashion in metropolitan areas. The CPM for this audience is $45. The advertiser's campaign budget is $50,000. How many total impressions will the campaign deliver? If the campaign runs across 30 days, what is the average daily impression volume? If the typical user in this demographic sees the ad 3 times before the advertiser considers them "reached," approximately how many unique users does this campaign reach?

Tier 4 — Analysis

These exercises require you to break down complex arguments, evaluate evidence, identify assumptions, and examine the internal logic of claims. There are often no single correct answers — the quality of your reasoning matters as much as your conclusion.

Exercise 4.1 The chapter makes a specific causal claim: that the logic of attention monetization makes dark patterns structurally inevitable, not merely possible. Critically evaluate this claim. What assumptions does it rest on? Can you construct a counter-argument — a scenario in which the attention economy operates without producing dark patterns? What conditions would need to hold for that counter-scenario to be plausible?

Exercise 4.2 The chapter presents "the power asymmetry" as a central frame. Identify the five specific asymmetries listed. For each, evaluate the strength of the asymmetry: Is it as large as the chapter suggests? Are there mitigating factors the chapter doesn't fully acknowledge? Conclude with an overall assessment: do you accept the chapter's claim that individual willpower is "genuinely insufficient" as a response to the structural problem?

Exercise 4.3 The chapter criticizes both "techno-panic" and "techno-apologia" as inadequate framings. Reconstruct the strongest version of each position — the best argument a thoughtful techno-panicker would make, and the best argument a thoughtful techno-apologista would make. Then explain specifically what the chapter believes each framing gets wrong. Do you think the chapter's preferred "economic logic" framing avoids the weaknesses of both alternatives?

Exercise 4.4 Zuboff's concept of behavioral surplus is contested by some scholars who argue that data collection is simply a more sophisticated form of market research that has always existed. Construct the strongest version of this objection. How would Zuboff respond? What, if anything, is genuinely new about behavioral surplus compared to earlier forms of consumer research?

Exercise 4.5 The chapter argues that DAU/MAU metrics create an incentive to maximize habitual usage "regardless of whether that usage serves user wellbeing." Analyze this claim. Is it necessarily true that maximizing habitual usage conflicts with user wellbeing? Can you identify conditions under which they would align? Conditions under which they would conflict? What does this suggest about the limits of DAU/MAU as a metric?

Exercise 4.6 The chapter treats the transition from "measuring past engagement" to "predicting future engagement" as significant. Analyze the ethical implications of this shift. What are users implicitly consenting to when they use a platform that measures their behavior? What additional consent issues arise when that measured behavior is used to predict and influence future behavior? Is there a morally relevant difference between the two?

Exercise 4.7 The chapter uses Maya as a running example and is careful not to shame her for her phone usage. Analyze the rhetorical and analytical choices embedded in this framing. Why might an author choose to begin a chapter about social media harms with a sympathetic portrayal of a typical user? What are the advantages and risks of this approach? Could you construct a version of the same argument that began from a different framing — say, from the perspective of an engineer at TikTok?

Tier 5 — Synthesis and Evaluation

These exercises require you to construct original arguments, evaluate competing positions, and integrate concepts across the chapter into coherent positions of your own. These are the most open-ended exercises; they are designed for extended written responses, discussion, or debate.

Exercise 5.1 The chapter ends with the claim that "understanding the system is the necessary first step" toward navigating it deliberately. Write a 500-word argument either supporting or challenging this claim. Is understanding the economic logic of the attention economy sufficient to change behavior? What else might be required? Draw on specific examples from your own experience or observation.

Exercise 5.2 Design a social media platform that generates revenue without advertising. Specifically, describe: (a) the revenue model; (b) how the absence of advertising changes the design incentives; (c) what DAU/MAU still means for this platform and what it doesn't mean; (d) whether this platform would face any of the dark pattern pressures described in the chapter; and (e) one significant tradeoff or problem your alternative model creates. This is a design exercise in applied economics — there are no perfect answers, but there are better and worse-reasoned ones.

Exercise 5.3 The chapter frames the attention economy as "an economic logic, not a conspiracy." Some critics argue that this framing is too charitable to platform companies — that by explaining structural incentives, it implicitly exonerates the specific people who made specific choices. Write an argument that assigns appropriate moral responsibility to platform designers and executives while still maintaining the chapter's structural framing. Can these two things coexist — structural explanation and individual moral responsibility?

Exercise 5.4 Herbert Simon wrote in 1971. Evaluate how well his framework of attention scarcity predicts the specific features of the current social media environment. What does the framework explain well? What does it fail to anticipate? What would Simon need to add to his 1971 formulation to account for algorithmic recommendation, behavioral surplus, and the specific design logic of engagement-optimized social media?

Exercise 5.5 The chapter argues that CPM-based advertising creates a specific incentive to target high-income audiences more intensively than lower-income ones. Trace the downstream consequences of this incentive. If platforms allocate more engineering effort to engaging wealthy users (because they are more valuable per impression), what does this imply for information access, algorithmic attention, and the distribution of platform benefits across income levels? Write an extended analysis of the equity implications of CPM economics.

Exercise 5.6 — Quantitative Synthesis Using the figures from the chapter, construct a simplified model of Maya's annual value to the social media platforms she uses. Assume: she spends 5 hours per day across TikTok and Instagram; her demographic (17-year-old female, Austin TX) commands a CPM of $6 on TikTok and $9 on Instagram; she splits her time evenly between the two platforms; each platform delivers approximately 4 ad impressions per minute of usage. Calculate: (a) her approximate annual advertising value to each platform; (b) her combined annual value; (c) the aggregate annual value of all U.S. teenagers (approximately 40 million) with similar usage patterns; (d) how this compares to Meta's 2023 annual revenue of approximately $134 billion. What does this comparison suggest about who is carrying Meta's revenue?

Exercise 5.7 Write a 600-800 word essay arguing for a specific policy intervention designed to address the power asymmetry described in Chapter 1. Your proposal must: (a) identify the specific asymmetry it targets; (b) explain the mechanism by which the intervention would reduce the asymmetry; (c) address at least two objections to the proposal (including one from a free-market perspective and one from a civil liberties perspective); and (d) acknowledge the limits of the intervention. Possible targets include: advertising auction design, data collection restrictions, platform fiduciary duties, mandatory transparency requirements, or anything else your analysis suggests. Original proposals are welcome.

Note on working through these exercises: Tiers 1-2 are suitable for individual written responses. Tiers 3-4 work well as discussion questions or debate prompts in group settings. Tier 5 exercises are designed for extended writing assignments, seminar discussions, or research projects. The quantitative exercises (3.4, 3.8, 5.6) require arithmetic but no advanced mathematics — a calculator is sufficient.