Attention functions as an economic resource that platforms are built to extract

Odell frames the business model underlying most major social platforms as fundamentally an attention economy: these services are free to use because the actual product being sold is user attention, packaged and delivered to advertisers, which creates a structural incentive to maximize time spent rather than time well spent.

This reframing matters because it shifts the conversation about digital overuse away from individual willpower failures and toward the deliberate design choices, infinite scrolls, algorithmically tuned notifications, variable reward schedules, that professional teams build specifically to keep attention captured longer than users would choose if left alone with the interface.

Odell isn't arguing that individual self-control is irrelevant, but that treating overuse purely as a personal failing lets the underlying incentive structure off the hook, when addressing that structure might matter more than exhorting individuals to simply try harder against systems engineered by well-resourced teams to overcome exactly that willpower.

Takeaway: if attention is the product, distraction isn't an accident, it's the business model.