原文链接: The Economics of Attention
原文音频: 729988

2025.09.28

… （续上篇）

Focus, being vital to most forms work, aids production and can be consumed in leisure.
专注对大多数形式的工作都至关重要，它可以助力生产，也可以耗费在休闲上。

Getting the most out of, say, reading a newspaper column requires your full attention, which can be hard to provide if your phone is nearby.
想要最大化利用某件事，比如读一篇报纸专栏，就需要全神贯注。而如果你的手机就在旁边，这（完全专注）就很难提供。

Treating attention as a scarce resource helps bridge some of the gap between traditional models of Homo economicus-a rational optimiser seeking to maximise satisfaction of their preferences-and the figure who emerges from the experiments of behavioural economics, who is pulled away from rational thinking by any number of biases.
将注意力视为一种稀缺资源，有助于弥合一些传统（经济学）模型与经济学实验中通过一系列偏差呈现出的偏离理性思考的形象之间的偏差——这些模型研究理性经济人，也就是最大化满足其自身需求的理性决策者。

Why do consumers consistently fall for “left digit bias”, for instance, meaning they are far more likely to buy something for $2.99 than $3.00 while not distinguishing between items that cost $2.99 and $2.98?
为什么消费者总是落入“左位数偏见”？举个例子，他们更有可能买一些2.99美元而非3.00美元的物品，尽管他们不会区分2.99美元和2.98美元的商品。

Well, attention is scarce, which means that people rely on shortcuts and $2 is less than $3. 好吧，注意力是稀缺的，这意味着人们依赖捷径，而2美元比3美元要少。 Why bother to read the rest of the price? 何必还要费心去读后面的价格呢？

Herbert Simon, who won both the Turing award for artificial intelligence in 1975 and the Nobel prize in economics in 1978, coined the term “bounded rationality”. 1975年人工智能领域图灵奖以及1978年诺贝尔经济学奖得主赫伯特·西蒙，提出了术语“有限理性”。

“What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients,” he wrote. “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and the need to allocate that attention efficiently.”
“信息消耗的东西很明显：它消耗接受者的注意力。”他写道。“信息的丰富会造成注意力的贫乏，并产生有效分配注意力的必要性。”

Resisting brainrot is hard.
抵抗脑腐很难。

Simon used the two blades of a pair of scissors to illustrate his concept of bounded rationality.
西蒙用一把剪刀的两片刀刃来解释他有限理性的概念。

Decisions come from a combination of the individual’s own limitations and the information environment in which they operate(正式用语，意为决策、行动).
决策源于个人自身局限性与它们所处的信息环境的共同作用。

Asking which blade of the scissors did the cutting is a mistake, since it is always both.
问剪刀的哪一片完成了剪切是一个错误，因为它们总是同时起作用。

Willpower alone is unlikely to defeat perfectly tuned distraction machines with algorithms that constantly adjust to maximise user engagement.
单凭意志力不太可能战胜经过精心调校过的分心机器，它们的算法会不断地调整以最大化用户参与度。

That should concern economists, for if attention is a resource, it is not one covered by property rights.
这应该引起经济学家的关注，因为如果注意力是一种资源，它并没有受产权保护。

The spread of smartphones and social media has created a world in which it is very easy to steal.
智能手机和社交媒体的普及创造了一个偷走注意力的世界。

Can anything return attention to its owners?
有什么办法能把注意力还给其主人吗？

Social norms might help: libraries, for instance, have long insisted on silence in order to preserve focus.
社会规范可能会有帮助：例如图书馆为了保护专注，长期以来要求保持安静。

In time, regulation might, too.
不久的将来，管理制度可能也会起作用。

For the moment, however, the best hope is to take matters into your own hands and, when you are trying to read a column, put your phone far, far away.
然而，就目前来说，最好的办法是亲自采取行动，当你想读专栏文章时，把你的手机放得远远地。

第二句say偏口语化，正式写作中可用for example/for instance。
这里作为插入语，在逻辑上更合理——先说明重要的概念，再用say引出一个不那么重要例子。
say的位置不同，语气会稍有变化。比如放在句首*Say, …*有一种在话题开篇引起注意的含义。

Homo economicus：经济学术语，翻译为“理性经济人”，它假设整个经济环境中每个人都能理性地做出让自己利益最大化的决策，是理论模型对人的一种简化。
这个词来自拉丁语，homo（人），economicus(经济的)，拉丁语语法中形容词通常放在名词之后，合起来表示“理性经济人”。
economist是指“经济学家”。

coin：首次发明，创造（新术语，新说法）

engagement：订婚，约定。
本文的含意为“互动/参与/注意力投入”，这是互联网专业术语：

• user engagement：用户参与度
• user retention (rate): 用户留存率

程度副词语气对照表