As comms professionals, we’re in the business of attention. We build narratives, craft messages, and design experiences to persuade, inform, delight, and, importantly, hold the focus of our audiences. The success of our work hinges on capturing and keeping the one resource that every brand, platform, and publisher competes for: attention. But we operate in an economy where distractions abound while attention spans seemingly diminish with every swipe. As the average person becomes tethered ever tighter to their digital devices, the value of attention has skyrocketed too. Today, attention isn’t just a prerequisite for communication, it’s an asset class in its own right. Even our language treats it like a tangible currency. We “pay attention” we “lose focus”. We treat it as something to be traded and exchanged, but also something that is in limited supply. It can demand a hefty price tag too. Ad rates for this year’s Super Bowl have reached as high as $10 million for a 30-second slot. Brands are paying over $333,000 a second to reach the (probably semi-attentive) eyeballs of 120+ million viewers. Screentime and squeezed attention spans While exact figures are contested, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) found that UK adults spend on average 7.5 hours a day glued to our screens, up by almost an hour compared with 2015. Similar studies in the US, found that American adults spend around 4.5 hours on their mobile phones alone each day; up 52% from 2022. But despite all this screentime, our attention is spread quite thin. On social platforms, users spend just 1.7 seconds on a piece of content before moving on. Attention itself is highly context dependent, and there is a lack of long-term studies that indicate a significant decline in modern day attention spans. This is despite the oft-cited yet widely debunked “8-second rule” assertion that phones have reduced our attention spans to that of a goldfish. In any case, whether we have less of it to give or there are simply more distractions vying for our attention, supplies are undoubtedly limited. Tech companies and social media platforms, however, are getting better and better at squeezing every ounce of this precious resource out of its users. What is human fracking? If you haven’t come across the term before, you’ve likely experienced it firsthand. In fact, it’s probably happening to you right now. Human fracking is the extraction of attention through digital design. It’s where tech companies treat attention like a resource to be mined, monetized, and optimized. It’s how digital products are engineered to keep us clicking, tapping, scrolling, and swiping for longer, often without noticing how or why. Where traditional fracking uses pressure to release oil or gas trapped deep underground, human fracking uses psychological levers, data signals, and behavioral nudges to release more engagement from every user. And now, the financial services sector is getting a piece of the action. From social feeds to savings pots Financial services have undergone a seismic shift over the last decade. Digital challenger banks have replaced high street branches with online services. Investment platforms have replaced face-to-face advice with push-notifications. Trading apps have turned the stock market into a multiplayer role-playing game. And in doing so, they’ve borrowed heavily from the engagement tactics that have made social media the 21st Century’s attention superpower. Social media platforms normalized concepts like:
- personalization to keep you scrolling
- gamification to keep you hooked
- micro-interactions (likes, streaks, badges, etc.) to keep you coming back
- data-driven nudges to shape behavior without explicit instruction
A high-stakes game
Monzo is a prime example. Users of the digital-first bank’s mobile app are nudged to participate in spending challenges, encouraged to deposit into savings pots illustrated with progress bars, can exchange emoji reactions with fellow savers, and can even enjoy personalized, Spotify Wrapped-style reviews of their financial health.
Boring everyday banking becomes an augmented experience, something to check, explore, and celebrate.
These human fracking techniques aren’t inherently harmful. In fact, they are helping many consumers to build healthier financial habits. But when the same mechanics appear on investment platforms, the stakes are (quite literally) higher.
Some mobile-first trading apps use:
- confetti animations after completing trades
- color-coded market signals
- push-alerts for trending stocks
- gamified progress prompts
- playful design motifs that mirror gaming or betting apps
Regulation is playing catch up
Financial services are, of course, more tightly regulated than social media platforms. The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has introduced guardrails aimed at curbing harmful digital engagement practices. These include:
- Consumer Duty (July 2023): Firms must prove that products and communications genuinely support customer needs and informed decision-making.
- 2024 FCA test trading platform: Built specifically to research how gamification influences investor behavior.
- Warnings to trading apps: The FCA explicitly cautioned against features that mimic gambling or encourage excessive trading.
- Stricter rules on high-risk promotions: Including crypto, with cooling-off periods and mandated risk warnings.
Meanwhile, US regulators are increasingly scrutinizing how things such as gamification, nudges, and predictive analytics may be used to manipulate investor behavior on fintech platforms, applying existing rules like Reg BI, fiduciary duties, and antifraud provisions to these UX designs.
The SEC’s position is a little clearer: if a user experience steers investors toward riskier actions or creates conflicts of interest, it may already violate longstanding securities laws.
But this is just the beginning. As banks and fintechs double down on attracting Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences, generations raised on push notifications and 15-second reels, the temptation to “frack” more attention will only grow. Specific regulation to address digital engagement in financial services feels inevitable.
As Finextra’s Hamish Monk explains: “Sooner than later, the financial services industry will have to come up with a dedicated framework to answer this new phenomenon, with a non-piecemeal and united regulatory front.”
What this means for fintech comms professionals
For those of us working in fintech communications, human fracking poses both a challenge and an opportunity. To navigate some of the pitfalls, we must:
1. Balance engagement with ethics
We’re storytellers, not extractors. Yes, we design for engagement, but engagement that informs and empowers, not manipulates. Every gamified feature or personalized nudge requires a comms lens: Does this help customers make better decisions? Or simply keep them clicking?
2. Understand the boundaries of FCA compliance
Consumer Duty shifts expectations. Comms teams must collaborate closely with product, compliance, and UX teams to ensure messaging, journeys, and experiences do not mislead users or disguise risk.
Where once we might push for bold CTA copy or more persuasive in-app nudges, today we must judge whether those messages respect the user’s agency and promote the long-term wellbeing of our audience.
3. Use comms principles to refine attention, not extract it
Good communications are built on principles that counteract the darker sides of human fracking:
- clarity over confusion
- value over volume
- context over clickbait
- trust over tricks
4. Position attention as a strategic asset
Leadership teams increasingly recognize that attention is money. Comms professionals can steer that conversation and help organizations understand:
- what healthy attention looks like
- how sustainable engagement can outperform extractive design
- how ethical UX and transparent communication build long-term loyalty
As comms experts, we have influence over tone, timing, and frequency of messaging. That means we can also champion wellbeing and nurture boundaries. A user whose attention is already stretched to the limits will likely favor a brand that subjects them to fewer push-notifications, less noise, more intentional communication in the long run.
New reality
Human fracking is the new reality. Tech is engineered for engagement, and engagement means money. But in financial services, where the risks can have serious consequences, ethical stewardship must become part of our remit as comms professionals advising brands in this space.
There are lessons to be learned too from the ruthless, unchecked extraction of other, more traditional resources, and the wider impact of such endeavors. And we know how that ends.
Fintechs that succeed in the next wave won’t be the ones who extract every last drop of attention from their audiences. They’ll be the ones who earn it, retain it, and respect it.
Share:
