Finding good information on the Internet is a lot like trying to drink from a fire hose: there’s plenty of water, but you’ll struggle to take a sip. That’s the problem behavioral economist Shlomo Benartzi tackles in his new book, which highlights different strategies web designers can deploy to cut through the clutter. Retailers, for example, should stick to mainstream fonts (Helvetica, Arial) since they’ve been proved to expedite thinking, whereas educational sites should try unconventional lettering to help readers remember facts. And banks might consider offering an app that digitally ages selfies; that feature, while odd, has been shown to prime users to think about saving for retirement. Although this may seem manipulative, Benartzi argues it’s a necessity for companies that want to survive in an increasingly competitive digital marketplace. Good business, he writes, used to be about “owning real estate and oil wells”; now it’s about owning attention. In that sense, he writes, “We need to treat attention as a literal resource.”
–SARAH BEGLEY
More Must-Reads from TIME
- Donald Trump Is TIME's 2024 Person of the Year
- Why We Chose Trump as Person of the Year
- Is Intermittent Fasting Good or Bad for You?
- The 100 Must-Read Books of 2024
- The 20 Best Christmas TV Episodes
- Column: If Optimism Feels Ridiculous Now, Try Hope
- The Future of Climate Action Is Trade Policy
- Merle Bombardieri Is Helping People Make the Baby Decision
Contact us at letters@time.com