> Social media companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and Snapchat have created a marketplace for our attention, where we become the product sold to advertisers who subtly change our behaviour to buy products and services for their own benefit.

As opposed to what? There has always been a marketplace for our attention, and our attention has always been sold for profit. The only thing that has changed is the medium. Merely stating 'we are the product' doesn't make an argument.

> This type of persuasion is most effective when these platforms command our attention with a heightened level of distraction.

I should suppose adverts are most effective when they manage to distract us from what we were doing when we weren't paying attention to the advert, yes.

> We create the content that is then used to command the attention of our peers, which is then used to sell advertising space while the surrounding content is measured for engagement, and the results are analysed to optimize the next round of ad placement.

Might be new, but unclear how this has less upside for me than me consuming content which is written by someone else for the attention of my peers with the advertising space around it being sold and measured for engagement.

As for 'microwork', haven't we always done a lot of objectively pointless stuff, norms, social customs because together they make the world we live in a little more pleasant for ourselves? Why yes we have.