Evolution of the digital attention market in the pandemic : a comparative study of young spanish university students (2019-2021)
Fernández-Rovira, Cristina (Universitat de Vic. Departament de Ciències de la Comunicació)
Giraldo Luque, Santiago (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Periodisme i de Ciències de la Comunicació)

Date:	2021
Abstract:	The business figures linked to the economy of big companies have shown that large technology platforms are some of the few major beneficiaries of the global economic crisis generated by COVID-19. The study compares biannual results of digital consumption and links user monitoring methods with the realization of qualitative focus groups. It analyses the evolution of the consumption of digital tools (mainly social media) by young university students in Spain between 2019 and 2021. The results of the comparative study show a 36% increase in the time spent using digital applications between the two years studied, as well as a greater concentration of time spent on a few platforms. The qualitative results indicate a self-declaration of addictive dependence on the use of social media; an increasing trend in declaring that youngsters have no interest in stopping their use of these platforms, and a justification that technology companies may not pay the user for the content and data they subsequently use to generate revenue in exchange for personal privacy. This behaviour describes the consolidation of the attention economy concept, which denotates a discursive appropriation of the university students who justify a part of the economic, social, and cultural domination that the technological giants carry out.
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Biannual comparative analysis ; COVID-19 ; Technological platforms ; Attention economy ; Social media ; Youth ; Oligopolies
Published in:	Sustainability, Vol. 13 Núm. 21 (11-1 2021) , p. 11837, ISSN 2071-1050

DOI: 10.3390/su132111837

14 p, 302.2 KB

The record appears in these collections:
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles