The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource

by Chris Hayes

This possibility of reciprocity forms the foundation of all social relationships; social attention is the necessary condition for any kind of relationship with other people, even if it is not sufficient for those relationships to flourish. We must pay attention to the people we have relationships with, and they must pay attention to us. But that attention doesn’t have to be positive or nourishing. This is another crucially important and distinct feature of social attention. Unlike the positive aspects of emotional connection that form the foundation of our most important human bonds, social attention can be intensely negative.