“Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.” ~ Niccolo Machiavelli
Raise your hand if you got a text recently about an unpaid toll road fee. I did. It looked scary until I took a deep breath and reread it with a little more care. That’s when I noticed the strange wording — kind of how I sound trying to answer a question in Spanish — and the web link that didn’t look quite right. I deleted the text, but not before that instant rush of panic that tends to override common sense. (In this case, common sense being that the last time I saw a toll road was over a year ago.)
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans were scammed out of $12.5 billion in 2024, a new record. What makes us so susceptible to being duped, and why is it becoming so much more common? Are people getting dumber? Are scammers getting smarter? Both of those statements may be true, but it goes beyond that. I think we can sum it up with the words attention, distraction, evaluation and comprehension.
We are living in an attention-based economy. Whatever succeeds in holding our attention the longest stands to earn the most money. Whether it’s an ad on social media, a shrieking talking head on an opinion show, a televangelist (or politician, there’s really no difference anymore) promising salvation from something dreadful in exchange for a donation, or a call or text sent to your personal phone, or an email that appears legit until you take a closer look. Our attention is compromised by the sheer volume of people and entities clamoring for it.
We’re also living in an era of distraction, mostly due to the previous statement. Distracted people make errors in judgment. If you get one of those scammy texts while you’re in the middle of cooking dinner, with a wailing toddler clinging to your leg, or when you’re at work trying to manage employees and emails and the bills, you’re likely to be distracted, or when you’re muddling through new technology, you’re susceptible to being deceived.
Evaluation requires a calm, objective, measured response, and comprehension comes through asking questions, making connections, and summarizing. Evaluation and comprehension require our time, focus and attention, the very things this “attention economy” and distractability are sucking up like a black hole. One neuroscientist put it this way: when people are time-pressured and not able to fully focus, they tend to believe false information. Like when people show up at your door unannounced to try to sell you something, and you get flustered and let them give their sales pitch, and the next thing you know you’re the proud owner of a very expensive vacuum cleaner. Don’t ask me how I know.
Slow down, breathe, and think before you click, reply or repost. The tricksters are out there, but they don’t have to win.
