Can’t pay attention to anything? TV host Chris Hayes has ideas
By KATY READ
The Minnesota Star Tribune (TNS) I was looking for self-help advice in Chris Hayes’ “The Sirens’ Call,” an examination of the system widely monopolizing our time and eroding our focus: the attention economy.
In recent years, my attention has felt continually besieged by a barrage of information, mostly in the form of online articles on topics ranging from politics to goal setting, gut health to Prince. I’ll set out to read an article and close that tab, then _nd myself clicking links to _ve new articles. Meanwhile, I never seem to have time for the stack of books I really want to read. I hoped that even if Hayes didn’t offer solutions, just getting through the book might strengthen my self-discipline.
As an MSNBC commentator with his own news and opinion show, Hayes readily admits he’s both vulnerable to attention predators and dependent on audience attention himself. He examines the challenges of that status, including the weirdness of drawing attention from strangers in public.
He assures me that not only am I not alone in my attention overload, it’s not really my fault, at least not entirely. Our attention, “the very substance of our consciousness,” is a commodity that can be harvested and monetized. But unlike physical commodities like cars or soybeans, human attention has a limited supply, which keeps intensifying the competition for it.
Hayes observes his subject from multiple angles, noting that attention isn’t just something exploited by sinister forces. Humans are hardwired to crave it for themselves, as personal validation or palliative for social isolation. Meanwhile, paying attention to our surroundings is necessary for survival, but the ways we direct it have evolved, from noticing the oncoming saber-toothed tiger to scrolling through our phones while watching TV.
Our brains have changed, he suggests. Hayes marvels that in 1858 crowds of Americans could have been riveted by debates about slavery between eventual presidential rivals Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas that included an hourlong speech, a 90-minute rebuttal and a 30-minute response. Contemporary presidential debates offer candidates a couple of minutes each to address questions on more than a dozen topics.
Occasionally the book gets a little textbook-y, or at least I found myself reaching for my phone (no! no! no!). But that might say more about my own habitual craving for stimuli than about the prose.
Overall, Hayes keeps it lively. He takes lessons from the mythical sirens that lure sailors to their doom in “The Odyssey” and the screams of emergency vehicles. He quotes an array of philosophers and authors. He analyzes the three most toxic forms of attention-seeking: trolling, “whataboutism” (counter-accusations) and “conspiracism.” He connects his subject to cocktail-party chatter, babies’ cries, spam email, apes grooming, kindergarten teachers, even Brad Pitt.
Did reading this help with my personal attention issues? Sort of.
I wasn’t entirely satis_ed with Hayes’ ideas for remedies. They include legally restricting ages or hours on the internet, replacing digital information with print, communicating via text instead of social media.
I’m skeptical that these would solve the problem. My attention mostly isn’t sucked up by sinister commercial forces. It’s stuff I want to read – there’s just too much of it. But hey, I _nished this book!
Penguin Random House / TNS
