Linguistics and Languages

The rising entropy of English in the attention economy

C. Pilgrim, W. Guo, et al.

Dive into groundbreaking research by Charlie Pilgrim, Weisi Guo, and Thomas T. Hills, revealing how the word entropy of American English has steadily increased since 1900! Discover fascinating variations across media types, with short-form media providing a richer landscape of information. This study combines ecological models and consumer behavior insights, explaining why shorter formats are becoming the go-to choice for media consumers.

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Playback language: English

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Abstract

This paper presents evidence of a steady increase in the word entropy of American English since 1900. It also finds variations in word entropy across different media types, with short-form media (news, magazines, social media) exhibiting higher entropy than long-form media. An ecological model of the attention economy, combining Zipf's law and information foraging, is developed to explain these findings. The model suggests that media consumers maximize information utility rate considering search costs, while producers adapt to technologies reducing these costs, resulting in higher entropy content in shorter formats.

Publisher

Communications Psychology

Published On

Aug 01, 2024

Authors

Charlie Pilgrim, Weisi Guo, Thomas T. Hills

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