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

by Chris Hayes

To achieve clarity about what it means to be human in this specific era, it’s necessary at each moment to ask what’s new and what’s not, what’s being driven by some novel technology or innovation and what’s inherent in human society itself. For example, it’s not a new phenomenon for masses of people to believe things that aren’t true. People didn’t need Facebook “disinformation” for witch trials and pogroms, but there’s also no question that frictionless, instant global communication acts as an accelerant. Also not new: our desires to occupy our minds when idle. Look at pictures of streetcar commuters of the early twentieth century and you’ll see cars packed with men in suits and hats, every last one reading the newspaper, their noses buried in them as surely as modern commuters are buried in their phones.