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The Attention Economy Thesis
ADHD is not a deficit of attention. It is a different economy of attention.
Fabian Brown · First Edition · July 2026
This thesis brings together two bodies of work never formally joined — the economics of attention (Herbert Simon, 1971) and the clinical picture of the interest-based ADHD nervous system (Dodson's INCUP model) — and argues that ADHD is not a shortage of attention but a different economy of it: one that pays for interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, and meaning rather than importance, priority, and consequence. Fully referenced. Clinically grounded. Ethically bounded.
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Download The Attention Economy Thesis (PDF)What's inside
The Core Thesis
ADHD is a different economy of attention — paying for interest, novelty, challenge, urgency, and meaning, not importance.
The Proof
Hyperfocus as evidence. Fifty years of attention economics (Simon 1971). The clinical INCUP model.
The Deep Implication
Attention as the sacred question — what the contemplative traditions always knew.
The Path Forward
Regulate. Reframe. Offer. Wound, work, gift.