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The co-op bookstore for avid readers
The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
Reader Score
84%
84% of readers
recommend this book
From the New York Times bestselling author and MSNBC and podcast host, a powerful wide-angle reckoning with how the assault from attention capitalism on our minds and our hearts has reordered our politics and the very fabric of our society
"An ambitious analysis of how the trivial amusements offered by online life have degraded not only our selves but also our politics." --New York Times
"Brilliant book... Reading it has made me change the way I work and think."--Rachel Maddow
We all feel it--the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they're us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, "With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade." Hayes argues that we are in the midst of an epoch-defining transition whose only parallel is what happened to labor in the nineteenth century: attention has become a commodified resource extracted from us, and from which we are increasingly alienated. The Sirens' Call is the big-picture vision we urgently need to offer clarity and guidance.
Because there is a breaking point. Sirens are designed to compel us, and now they are going off in our bedrooms and kitchens at all hours of the day and night, doing the bidding of vast empires, the most valuable companies in history, built on harvesting human attention. As Hayes writes, "Now our deepest neurological structures, human evolutionary inheritances, and social impulses are in a habitat designed to prey upon, to cultivate, distort, or destroy that which most fundamentally makes us human." The Sirens' Call is the book that snaps everything into a single holistic framework so that we can wrest back control of our lives, our politics, and our future.
Book Details
- Publisher: Penguin Press
- Publish Date: Jan 28th, 2025
- Pages: 336
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 9.48in - 6.39in - 1.22in - 1.26lb
- EAN: 9780593653111
- Categories: • History & Theory - General• Economics - General• Media Studies
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About the Author
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What people are saying
"I’ve read most of the books on attention out there. This one is, I think, the best at understanding the value of attention today... it is the world’s most valuable resource. And the people who are on top of the world right now understand its value."
Praise for this book
"[Hayes'] facility for lucid synthesis is put to gratifying use in this smart, constructive book . . . He carefully charts how the churning monetization of attention has fundamentally changed news, politics, and leisure time, turning our communications landscape into a kind of 'failed state' where common-sense norms have been routed by 'attentional warlordism.' Amid the virtual maelstrom, Hayes wants to help readers reclaim a measure of mental tranquility . . . An intelligent, forward-looking analysis of our increasing inability to stay focused." --Kirkus Reviews
"Chris Hayes sees around corners--not just naming and explaining but also solving problems that the rest of us are only starting to sense. The Sirens' Call is his biggest idea yet, and his most urgent. Reading it has made me change the way I work and think. Brilliant book." --Rachel Maddow, host of the Emmy Award-winning Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Prequel, Blowout, and Drift
"Attention has always been an undervalued commodity, yet it's the very foundation of a meaningful life. In The Sirens' Call, Chris Hayes uses his keen intellect and knowledge of history to show how the war over our attention is undermining us 24/7. What is the antidote for the urge to constantly grab what he calls 'the little attention box' in our pockets? Read this book to find out!" --Katie Couric, award-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Going There
"With dazzling knowledge and insight, Chris Hayes not only diagnoses our growing social alienation but provides a path to sanity. If you long for something that will hold your attention and even help restore it, then read this utterly compelling and enlightening book." --David Grann, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Wager and Killers of the Flower Moon
"Chris Hayes has diagnosed the critical ill of our age--and no one is better positioned to understand and explain it. A profoundly careful and informed thinker, Hayes lives the disease he diagnoses. The depth of his insight, and urgency of his message, are essential reading for our time--if we can muster the attention that careful thinking demands." --Lawrence Lessig, Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard Law School
What people are saying
"I’ve read most of the books on attention out there. This one is, I think, the best at understanding the value of attention today... it is the world’s most valuable resource. And the people who are on top of the world right now understand its value."