Are people really paying attenshun?

A long time ago, SMSs were free in India, specifically to the Hutch cellpheun network. I once spent an evening SMSsing prime numbers and maybe even a Fibonacci sequence to everyone in my directory. The assumption being that even 1/r^2 diminishing of wave amplitude, there might be aliens out there who are monitoring the 8 GHz band and will decode my signals as signs of intelligent life.

I thought it was a slightly fun thing to do, and I was bored. Now there are people who are apparently crying out for attenshun, and help all the time. In certain extreme cases, they do such horrible things as slash their wrists. But what is it in the immediate world that we live in that ignores people to the point that it drives people to such extremes? Could there be alternatives? Surely..

So why do people ignore the small things in each other's lives which make each day slightly special? Second question: are there so few things in people's lives that can be valued? Third question: how valuable is a person's time that it can be spent appreciating things another person loves? Fourth question: at which point does the question 'will you spend time with me looking at painting/movies/walking in the snow/watching the Democrat debate' become an imposition? When does a person become an attenshun grabbing whore?