Steemit Content Consumption [A fallacy in the attention Economy]

One of the biggest problems I can see on Steemit right now is a low level of consumption to supply ratio. In laymans terms, too much content is being posted than content being read/consumed. There seems to be a load of content being pushed out, which is great! But how much of these are really being read and considered? I'm sure you have a post, or, several which never truly got the attention and recognition it truly deserved.

What is the Attention Economics?

An approach for the management of information, it essentially treats a human attention as a scarce commodity.

We know that in general oversupply leads to a reduction in demand. And despite attention being a focused mental engagement on something, it is also the most limiting factor on the consumption of information.

We are pretty much limited beings, we filter out the mass amount of information there is in the world so that the "most important" information is retained. Now note that it is in inverted commmas. This is because what is most important is a rather personalized opinion. It is relative from person to person due to their own accumulated tastes, knowledge and interests. Some things may be more alluring for one than for another.

But what is the cause for the reduced content consumption?

What I believe to be the leading factor to posts not getting the attention they deserve is due the the mass diversification of posts that a user has to absorb when logged onto Steemit. In general one is able to filter through this by finding the related tags, though, when it comes to just loading the Home or New tab, we come into some issues.

As you can see, we have a variety of mixed posts and some can be irrelevant to a user browsing on the site. The excessive flow of content can make it challenging for one to find a valuable post. Though one can argue that the articles you find will be diverse in content, it can be a little messy for some. Though as mentioned, we will only be attracted by articles that fall into our category of interests, so how does steemit solve this?

Hashtags

A great way to browse the news you want to go through. So be it Crypto, Blockchain, Life, and more; tags are handy for one to find what they need.

But it still poses an issue. I believe that it can be a little tedious to search up the hashtags you want, when one should be provided with filtered search automatically! This is where I would like to propose a solution to the matter.

Hashtag Columns

Wouldn’t it be much more comprehensive if tabs are provided for one to filter themselves?

Consider if you wish to create a single tab which consisted of articles on Life. Or how’s about Crypto? Or even Both. This can further be grinded down to new, trending and hot content. This could possibly improve the content consumption level to solve the oversupply!

This is a win-win situation for active users who write and also consume. With all due respect to the current system. Though the beauty about Steemit is that such an interface could be created since anyone can access the Steem Bockchain to create their own platform.

Ingenuine Comments

Another way I’ve noticed that there is less genuine interaction at times is the application of Bots. It’s not illegal, and can be downright useful! but you always see them on new posts such as introduceyourself.

Furthermore this topic can be expanded towards people who simply comment something simple and may be overly supportive of the author's narrative. Simply on the intent to fish for more upvotes. Sure it can be simple and does add a comment, but we’ve all come across sugarcoated responses which sometimes challenge the authenticity of the comment.

Nonetheless this is the nature of the internet and forums and social sites alike; with the incentives at hand, sometimes the easy route can yield something!

Regardless, Steemit is Awesome

Steemit is an amazing platform utilizing blockchain and with premium reward mechanisms. It really is one of the first of its kind that is so successful. This post is in no way bashing what we have, merely room for more improvement. The amount of users joining is only increasing and sometimes we all want to see minnows and the other critters succeed in the Steemit chain!

We all have a voice, an idea, a claim. And we all want it to be heard, this is just my two cents on a small way we can help improve getting your voices heard, and to direct undervalued posts to those who find value in it.

So, what do you think? Should there be an upgrade to the existing layout? What are your thoughts on the level of consumption you do?