{
  "id": 8980594,
  "title": "Attention is all you have",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/attention-is-all-you-have-8980594",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-21T14:26:56.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Hacker News Best",
    "slug": "hacker-news-best",
    "url": "https://alicegg.tech/2026/09/21/attention"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The Tetris effect is a simple psychology experiment that demonstrates how focusing on something for an extended period can shape our thoughts. By playing the game daily, we begin to recognize familiar Tetromino shapes in everyday objects, even when we're falling asleep. This phenomenon reveals that whatever we focus on long enough will influence our mental processes. While this can be beneficial for learning new skills and discovering ideas, the reality is that we're not intentionally directing our attention as much as we used to. Instead of choosing what we want to see, we let others decide what content is suitable for us. When we browse YouTube, for instance, we're presented with cooking and art streams simply because the platform knows we enjoy them. However, why not also receive recommendations about the stock market bubble, global warming, and the war in Iran? Constantly doomscrolling not only prolongs our time online but also exposes us to more ads.\n\nMoreover, music streaming services like Spotify use algorithms to suggest songs based on our preferences, often interjecting AI-generated content to avoid paying royalties to real artists. Similarly, platforms like LinkedIn and Reddit have become filled with opinionated strangers, shilling products that align with their investments or affiliations. It's disheartening to think that these strangers might be LLMs (Language Model) or Russian trolls posing as real people. Our attention, especially given that most of us spend a significant portion of our day on our devices, is being heavily influenced by these algorithms. And when we allow someone else to dictate what appears on our screens, it's as if we're handing them the key to our minds.\n\nThe internet hasn't always been this way. Before recommendation algorithms, users had to choose what they wanted to do on their computers. Instead of a single app designed to entertain, there were dozens of bookmarks leading to websites with specific interests. These included sites dedicated to video game news, tutorial hubs, anime blogs, and show wikis from the 1990s. While there were certainly negative aspects of the web, such as Encyclopedia Dramatica and Rotten.com, users had to actively seek them out. The content was not forced upon us by suggestion engines. Thankfully, this intentional internet still exists, albeit buried beneath the corporate web. It just requires a bit of effort to find. What's particularly intriguing is that this more curated, less automated internet is still available to us; we simply need to seek it out. Now that you're reading this blog, you likely already understand this concept. The key difference between now and before is the individual's role in shaping the content we consume. When we want to return to reading blogs, RSS feeds, and completing tutorials, we must adapt to a slower, more deliberate internet. One where content is finite and doesn't update with every click. Like any habit, consistency is crucial. With enough attention and dedication, we can see significant improvements in our mental state.",
  "summary": "Article URL: https://alicegg.tech/2026/09/21/attention Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49787726 Points: 288 # Comments: 79",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "Hacker News",
        "title": "Attention is all you have",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/attention-is-all-you-have",
        "published": "2026-09-21T14:26:56.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}