This careful manufacturing of a surface-level attention to the next thing creates an ersatz attention, the German word for “substitute,” popularized during the Second World War. A cup of roasted chicory root, barley, acorns, rye, or dandelion root would stand in as an ersatz coffee when coffee bean rations were unavailable. While these substitutes could in some ways stand in, they were ultimately what Nabokov would call a pale fire comparison to the true article. Writing on his imprisonment in Auschwitz, Primo Levi makes note of the ersatz coffee, which adds yet another layer of the surreal simulacra of existence in the camps. This is precisely the type of attention produced by the attention economy. This ersatz attention is the shadow-self of true attention. It appears as if we are attending to our screens, but, in fact, it is the mirror-darkly of attention.

I don't even remember what I scrolled over 10 minutes ago, unless a new trigger reminds me of it. Yet, I remember vividly what I talked about with my colleague during lunch.
Ersatz attention vs true attention, clearly.