---
title: "Can you trust your feed?"
description: "How attention-optimising platforms exploit human psychology. What the harms are. What you can do. Non-commercial."
url: https://attentionmachine.org/en/
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-24
license: "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)"
---

Public interest · Non-commercial · Evidence-based

# Can you trust your feed? _It is engineered to keep your attention._

How that is done — and what it costs us.

The platforms you use every day were designed — by teams of engineers, with billions of data points — to keep you on them as long as possible. Not to inform you. Not to challenge you. Not even, in the end, to connect you. To keep you.

There is no conspiracy. The harm emerges from the incentives.

[Explain how it works →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/)

The loop · no conspiracy, only incentives

No single actor is in charge. Each party follows its own incentive — and together they form a loop that feeds itself. Follow it round:

1. [**Platforms optimise for engagement** Not your wellbeing — your time on screen](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/how-it-works/)
2. [**Your attention becomes data** Every tap, pause and scroll is profiled](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/advertising/)
3. [**Advertisers buy the profile** Auctioned to the highest bidder, in milliseconds](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/tracking-and-targeting/)
4. [**Creators chase revenue and influence** Which grow with their number of subscribers](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/how-it-works/#creators)

The loop was built for profit, not for any cause. Others have learned to use it on purpose: [some governments](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/state-actors/) to spread [disinformation around elections](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/elections/), criminal networks to [recruit children](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/recruited-to-harm/).

Four ways to explore

The Machine

## ["How does this actually work?"](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/)

The engagement loop, real-time bidding, device fingerprinting, and search engines as attention machines. The full technology behind what you feel.

Start with the machine →

The Symptoms

## ["What is it actually doing?"](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/)

Mental health, elections, radicalisation, consumerism. Documented harms, from the 1990s to today. What is established and what is still contested.

See the evidence →

The Antidote

## ["What can I actually do?"](https://attentionmachine.org/en/educate/)

From individual actions to structural advocacy. The institutions worth supporting.

What actually helps →

The Rules

## ["Who is supposed to stop this?"](https://attentionmachine.org/en/laws/)

Laws that lag the technology by decades, courts that are starting to catch up, and what a public record of truth needs from journalism, science and democracy.

The laws and the courts →

Find your starting point

[I'm a parent](https://attentionmachine.org/en/for-you/parents/) [I'm a teenager](https://attentionmachine.org/en/for-you/teens/) [I'm a young adult](https://attentionmachine.org/en/for-you/young-adults/) [I'm an educator](https://attentionmachine.org/en/for-you/educators/) [I'm a policymaker](https://attentionmachine.org/en/for-you/lawmakers/)

Live demonstrations

## Want to see it in action?

Three interactive demos show the mechanism working in real time. The Tracking & Targeting demo reveals what every website can see about you, simulates the RTB auction your data enters, and shows how that profile is used to target you. The Gamification demo lets you feel the mechanics — and then watch the same mechanics pointed only at your time. The Data Combination demo shows how three harmless-looking slices of data, held by three different companies, combine into one sharp profile through a single shared key.

[Tracking & Targeting demo →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/tracking-and-targeting/) [Gamification demo →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/gamification-demo/) [Data Combination demo →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/attention-machine/data-combination/)

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Some content on this site was created with the assistance of AI tools and may contain errors. [How we use AI →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/about/how-we-use-ai/)