The Crisis of Attention Theft
Consider,
for example, the ���innovation��� known as Gas Station
TV���that is, the televisions embedded in gasoline pumps
that blast advertising and other pseudo-programming
at the captive pumper.��There is no escape: as the CEO
of Gas Station TV puts it, ���We like to say you���re tied
to that screen with an 8-foot rubber hose for about
five minutes.��� It is an invention that singlehandedly
may have created a new case for the electric car.
Attention theft happens anywhere you find your time
and attention taken without consent.��The most egregious
examples are found where, like at the gas station,
we are captive audiences.��In that genre are things
like the new, targeted advertising screens found in
hospital waiting rooms (broadcasting things like ���The
Newborn Channel��� for expecting parents); the airlines
that play full-volume advertising from a screen right
in front of your face; the advertising-screens in office
elevators; or that universally unloved invention known
as ���Taxi TV.���
What to do about ad screens that are imposed on us in these captive scenarios? Wu suggests towns and cities have managed this problem before:
In the 1940s cities banned noisy advertising trucks bearing loudspeakers; the case against advertising screens and sound-trucks is basically the same. It is a small thing cities and towns can do to make our age of bombardment a bit more bearable.
Wired | The Crisis of Attention Theft���Ads That Steal Your Time for Nothing in Return
