Research, Delante Clark

Delante Clark is the originator of the Attention Safeguard Models™ (ASM™), the Cognitive Attentional Standards Platform™ (C.A.S.™), and the Sociological Impact Assessment™ (SIA™), three integrated, applied sociotechnical systems developed to reconceptualize digital attention as a socially stratified resource subject to structural extraction.

Before the development of ASM™, C.A.S.™, and SIA™, there was no documented, unified, and operationalized method specifically designed to measure, quantify, and qualify digital attention harm at the platform level. Digital products have historically been evaluated through engagement indicators such as clicks, time spent, session frequency, retention, interaction volume, and conversion. Those measures can show whether users remain active, but they do not establish whether a digital environment is undermining a person's ability to focus, disengage intentionally, regulate attention, or maintain cognitive well-being.

Clark's systems introduce a structured method for making digital attention harm observable, assessable, comparable, and actionable. Rather than asking only whether a technology is engaging, these systems make it possible to evaluate whether that technology protects user attention, supports meaningful participation, preserves user agency, and reduces harmful patterns of digital interaction.

ASM™ serves as the foundational model for defining attention safeguards and measuring digital attention standards. It provides the conceptual and evaluative structure for identifying attention-extractive design conditions, assessing their potential effects, and establishing standards for healthier digital interaction.

SIA™ functions as the sociological assessment mechanism within the system. It evaluates the broader institutional, social, and societal consequences of digital environments, including how platform design, algorithmic systems, and engagement practices may distribute attention-related burdens across different communities and user groups.

C.A.S.™ operates as the live scoring, evaluation, and enforcement platform that applies ASM™ and SIA™ in real-world settings. It produces measurable outputs, comparative scores, and compliance determinations that allow digital platforms to be assessed against structured cognitive-attentional and sociological standards.

Current academic and policy research continues to identify a lack of standardized systems for measuring digital and platform-level harm. Research on algorithm auditing notes that the field lacks agreed-upon practices, procedures, and standards, limiting the ability to conduct consistent and scalable evaluations (Algorithm audit framework paper). Government research likewise reports that no established approach exists for measuring the prevalence and impact of many forms of online harm, demonstrating a broader gap in digital-environment evaluation (UK Online Harm Feasibility Study). Research on digital well-being also characterizes measurement approaches as fragmented and piecemeal rather than standardized and comparable across contexts (OECD Digital Well‑Being Report).

Within this landscape, C.A.S.™ represents a first-of-its-kind applied infrastructure that integrates attention measurement, sociological impact assessment, and platform-level evaluation into one repeatable system. Unlike approaches that remain limited to isolated research methods, conceptual frameworks, or policy guidance, C.A.S.™ is designed to apply ASM™ and SIA™ directly to live digital environments and produce structured, actionable findings.

Together, ASM™, SIA™, and C.A.S.™ translate original sociological work into an operational infrastructure for digital governance, product evaluation, accountability, and attention protection. They establish a documented method for assessing not merely how effectively a platform captures attention, but whether it does so in ways that cause, sustain, or reduce digital attention harm. This work positions Delante Clark as the “Father of Digital Attention Harm Measurement.”