nobody on Nostr: I doubt that is the reason they calibrated for attention and engagement. Attention ...

I doubt that is the reason they calibrated for attention and engagement. Attention was farmed ever since the early days of advertisement. My generation grew up watching broadcast TV, our attention farmed and sold to the advertisers.

If you seek to understand why humans are so interested in the narrative of other people we enter “history of storytelling” territory. Many people will state that “conflict” is what creates the interest. We are wired to study other people’s conflicts, conflicts with other people, conflict with themselves, conflicts with nature and so on. One hypothesis is that we seek to gain advantages for future “conflicts”.

However, I believe that “change of state” is what creates the interest with stories, and conflict is one expression of it.

Gossip makes it interesting. Believed to regulate society, it mostly offers neutral societal information. However, it is always transgression gossip (conflict) that travels the fastest and the most. (Or why media calibrate for conflict to increase attention and engagement)