Attention Implosion

You either already realize this, or you’re still running fast and hard toward the cliff. Either way, I’d love your perspective.

That cliff is the attention implosion. You likely consider yourself a social creature. You probably like human interaction either on a small scale or a large scale. But, the key to the success of human interaction is, um, interaction. I don’t know what the number is for you–Dunbar suggests 150–but at some point it becomes physically and emotionally impossible to interact with people. When your attention is spread too thin, you can’t give anyone the attention they deserve.

There might be anomalies among us, but even that is debatable.

I recommend that you spend a little time thinking about who your real friends are, and don’t forget not to forget about them. You had better hope they will still be around when your attention implodes.