Paper Details

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has fundamentally altered the political economy of digital attention. In India, where millions of internet users interact daily with algorithmically curated content, the attention economy has become a defining feature of contemporary social life. This paper explores how AI-driven platform design structures human behaviour and cognition in India’s digital ecosystem. Drawing from behavioural economics and digital sociology, the article conceptualises the attention economy not merely as a technological or economic system but as a behavioural infrastructure that monetises human focus and emotion. Through predictive algorithms, recommender systems, and gamified interfaces, AI transforms attention into a scarce, extractable resource. This paper argues that the attention economy in India exemplifies a new form of data capitalism, where engagement metrics replace traditional notions of value, and users’ psychological tendencies are systematically exploited to maximise retention. The paper also highlights how platforms like YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and other AI-mediated applications recalibrate social relations, affective labour, and identity formation in ways that blur the line between autonomy and manipulation. Using the conceptual frameworks of Michel Foucault’s governmentality, Herbert Simon’s attention scarcity, and Shoshana Zuboff’s surveillance capitalism, the paper demonstrates how platform design governs conduct by shaping visibility, emotion, and choice. The study concludes that in India’s fast-growing digital economy characterised by affordable data, smartphone ubiquity, and algorithmic governance, AI not only transforms how attention circulates but also redefines the meaning of human agency.

Artificial Intelligence, Attention Economy, Platform Design, Behavioural Economics, Digital Sociology, India, Human Behaviour, Algorithmic Governance