Human attention given to social media, streaming, and parasocial platforms this year — measured in collective human years.
This number increases every second. It represents the total time human beings collectively spend on digital platforms — not screen time per person, but the aggregate cost across billions of users.
The attention economy is built on capturing and holding human focus for as long as possible. Social media feeds, short-form video, and streaming platforms are designed to maximize time-on-site — which means maximizing how much of your finite life you spend watching instead of doing.
Attention Leak makes that invisible cost visible. The counter above shows the aggregate screen time across major platforms, converted into human years. It is not a judgment — it is a measurement.
Understanding how much time we lose online is the first step toward deciding whether that trade is worth it.