Captured Time: Eye Tracking and the Attention Economy

Abstract

This chapter examines the history how eye tracking came to stand in as a measurement for what people pay attention to. I argue that this connection between eye movement and attention is problematic and may lead to undesirable developments in the contemporary attention economy as it is implemented across digital platforms and smartphone apps in the near future—e.g., ads that pause playing when you look away from the screen. The chapter traces the emergence of eye tracking technology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and shows how its implementation to measure attention in the mid twentieth century cemented its purpose and has driven its development ever since.