[masalachai]

The problem of scattered attention is one that philosophers have been pointing to since thousands of years. Most practices like mindfulness, meditation, yoga help primarily with more conscious attention management. That attention is scattered/captured is not new. What it gets captured by probably changes every decade.

I dislike seeing ads, especially when they are poorly or intentionally designed to block you from doing what you came to site for. And I do have a concern about the amount of detail these companies end up accruing about a user and its implications. I also get distracted by them - but only when I don't have an intention or strong need to focus on the task at hand.

This does not make me think that ads themselves or the model itself is fundamentally bad. A model, ultimately is, as good or bad as its implementation. GMail, Google Maps, Android are some of the things that have changed the landscape in significant and positive ways, and all of them were made possible by ad tech.