Attention

Dear Reader,

Today’s missive is about the thing we love to hate: social media.

It should be obvious by now, but…

It's a trap!

I’ll explain what I mean below, and if you stick with me, there’s an important investment lesson.

Social media — namely Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube — is increasingly losing popularity.

A big reason for that is because the pandemic exposed the corruption at the highest levels of Big Tech.

The data stealing, invasion of privacy, and government collusion.

Now anyone who uses social media has a choice…

Willingly give up your freedom, ignorantly use social media and not care, or reject it altogether.

A lot of people are choosing the latter.

We know this because a big trend these days is “unplugging.”

Now, ironically, once social media influencers unplug, they scramble back to Mount Doom and share their experience with the world.

But the benefits of unplugging are hard to ignore:

• Lower stress levels
• Decreased feelings of jealousy, anxiety, FOMO, and fear
• Better sleep
• Improved mental health
• Added time to your day and life
• Increased feeling of groundedness and staying in the moment
• Increased happiness

Now, there are some people who make a living using these social platforms, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to grab people’s attention.

And that’s the important word for today…

Attention.

It’s the new commodity.

I watched a video from YouTuber Austin Schrock who recently ditched his smartphone for a $0.99 notepad that he carried around with him.

It gave him a sense of simplicity, and he espoused exactly what I’ve been feeling this year. Here’s what he said:

Attention is one of the rarest and most valuable commodities in the world today. If you can learn how to capture someone's attention and hold it, you instantly have an opportunity that no one else has.

All around us, there are hundreds of intruders that are constantly competing for just a tiny little slice of our attention so they can fill it with their message or their product or their ideas. And what’s interesting is it’s often the best and most useful technological tools we have that are often the best at capturing our attention.

What it's not great for is organic thinking.

When we crave attention through social media, it destroys our ability to think for ourselves.

It destroys what makes us human.

And people are catching on.

Chris Rock said as much in his new Netflix special.

In it, he bashes digital attention-seekers:

The biggest addiction in America is… attention.

Fiending for love. Now we just want likes.

Easiest way to get attention? To be excellent. That’s right… being excellent will get you attention. But it’s hard being excellent. You’ve got to get up in the morning. You’ve got to work out. You’ve got to practice.

So while everyone is busy trying to get attention and likes, a real problem has emerged.

Social media is now a national security threat.

We’ve heard it straight from the experts.

The problem is no one believes it.

And even if they do believe it, they don’t care.

Call it what you will… distrust in the government, ignorance, disinformation, misinformation…

The fact remains that TikTok is being called a propaganda tool.

The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee just voted to give President Biden the power to ban the app.

Many think it won’t end there.

The real solution is to instill a sense of pride in our citizens so they don’t want to waste their time on these apps in the first place.

A government should want the best for its citizens, not to control them.

How can a society be fruitful and productive when its citizens poison themselves with fast food and rot their brains with social media while the lawmakers take money from these very same companies?

Banning the app would just put a Band-Aid on the issue; it wouldn't solve the root of the problem.

In ancient Greece, when Lycurgus became the king of Sparta, he believed that to have a successful society, citizens needed to be healthy, disciplined, and physically fit.

These elements would increase a person’s self-control and self-worth.

So do you really think this is going to end at banning TikTok?

Of course not.

My publisher Brian Hicks says it’s all about control.

Imagine if your most personal conversations via text or email were subject to scrutiny.

How about being locked out of your bank account… your access shut off?

All without any warrant, due process, or trial. Gone.

Brian is sounding the alarm that the U.S. government is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency, a digital dollar, so it can track your every move, monitor your every purchase.

Global elites are calling this event “The Great Reset.”

And it’s been in the planning stages for years, if not decades.

Whatever it’ll be called, he says you need to take this as seriously as if your life depended on it.

This move could happen as soon as March 16.

Stay frosty,

Alexander Boulden
Editor, Wealth Daily

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After Alexander’s passion for economics and investing drew him to one of the largest financial publishers in the world, where he rubbed elbows with former Chicago Board Options Exchange floor traders, Wall Street hedge fund managers, and International Monetary Fund analysts, he decided to take up the pen and guide others through this new age of investing.

Alexander is the investment director of Insider Stakeout — a weekly investment advisory service dedicated to tracking the smartest money on the planet so that his readers can achieve life-altering, market-beating returns. He also serves at the managing editor for R.I.C.H. Report, a comprehensive service that uses the highest-quality investment research and strategies that guides its members in growing their wealth on top of preserving it.

Check out his editor’s page here.

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