Chris Hayes
How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
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The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
Third Place Books
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You’ve probably been there: doomscrolling or otherwise distracted by devices. Many of us have lost focus before as our addictive phones consume our time or interfere with social situations. People bump into one another on the street, look down at their phones at restaurants, or check their mobile devices while spending time with the kids as continuous pings sound off in their pockets and purses. New York Times bestselling author, political commentator, and MSNBC news anchor Chris Hayes posits that these phenomena are part of a larger issue of attention capitalism, and show how attention itself has been taken from us and turned into a commodity.
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His latest release, The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource, charts how the deliberate harvesting of human attention by wealthy companies has fundamentally changed news, politics, and leisure time. As society grows increasingly unable to concentrate, the consequences can be serious, and hold implications for what lies ahead.
The Sirens’ Call aims to provide a holistic framework as well as steps people can take to regain control of their own lives and futures, overcoming what Hayes refers to as “the little attention box” that continues to dominate much of our existence.
Chris Hayes is the Emmy Award–winning host of All In With Chris Hayes on MSNBC and the New York Times bestselling author of A Colony in a Nation and Twilight of the Elites. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and children.
Presented by Town Hall Seattle.