Abstract: Just as ‘industrial revolution’ ushered in the ‘industrial age’ in the eighteenth century, ‘information and
digital revolution’ has steered the emergence of ‘information age’ in the middle of the twentieth century. The onset of
the information age has been accompanied with the advent of a knowledge economy, comprising the quaternary and
quinary sectors. Information age indicates the enhanced and growing significance of ‘information’ as the single most
valuable commodity. Information is a factor of production, commanding a price. However, availability of ‘wealth of
information’ at the disposal of consumers has created a peculiar situation of ‘information overload’, leading to
‘poverty of attention’. This has led to the emergence of ‘attention economy’, which treats information as an economic
problem, and considers human attention as a scarce commodity. As the quantity of digital information increases, the
level of human attention decreases. Information overload or clutter and limited capacity of humans to take this
information leads to the psychological phenomenon of ‘selective attention’, ‘selective retention’, and ‘selective
distortion’. Hence, the characteristics; and the media or internet habits of the target audience need to be researched,
so as to identify their interest areas. Information can be provided or may be hyperlinked accordingly. Website
designers are dealing with this tough job of creating attractive websites and storefronts, so that the audience, once
visit such a site, spend a longer time there, and find it useful and user-friendly. The search engines should also invest
their time and effort to analyse and judge whether a particular information is worthwhile, authentic, and not simply a
repetition of what is already there. This will substantially reduce information overload will resolve the attention issue.
Keywords: Digital Revolution, Information Age, Attention Economy, Quaternary and Quinary Sector, Selective Attention,
Selective Retention, Selective, Distortion