No Such Thing as Free Brain Time: For a Pigouvian Tax on Attention Capture

Abstract

In our age of digital platforms, human attention has become a scarce and highly valuable resource, rivalrous, tradable, and increasingly subject to market dynamics. This article explores the commodification of attention within the framework of the attention economy, arguing that attention should be understood as a common good threatened by over-exploitation. Drawing from philosophical, economic, and legal perspectives, we first conceptualize attention not only as an individual cognitive process but as a collective and infrastructural phenomenon susceptible to enclosure by digital intermediaries. We then identify and analyze negative externalities of the attention economy, particularly those stemming from excessive screen time: diminished individual agency, adverse health outcomes, and societal and political harms, including democratic erosion and inequality. These harms are largely unpriced by market actors and constitute a significant market failure. In response, among a spectrum of public policy tools ranging from informational campaigns to outright restrictions, we propose a Pigouvian tax on attention capture as a promising regulatory instrument to internalize the externalities and, in particular, the social cost of compulsive digital engagement. Such a tax would incentivize structural changes in platform design while preserving user autonomy. By reclaiming attention as a shared resource vital to human agency, health, and democracy, this article contributes a novel economic and policy lens to the debate on digital regulation. Ultimately, this article advocates for a paradigm shift: from treating attention as a private, monetizable asset to protecting it as a collective resource vital for humanity.