Tim Wu’s book The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads (review) was one of the best books I read in 2016; on Rick Kleffel’s Narrative Species podcast, Wu discusses the book (MP3) covering depth that he couldn’t fit between the covers.
The more limited a resource is, the greater its worth. We’re quick to apply this to externalities – air, food, water, energy, and money, for example. But we all own a hidden resource, exploited for immense profit on a daily basis. Each week of his or her life, every human being has 168 hours of attention, mental acuity that we can devote to anything we wish. Sure, much of it goes to sleep and the basics of getting around. Those spare moments when we are able to choose how we spend our attention are sought after with mathematical ruthlessness by those who hope to resell our experience. We are the ultimate product.It has not always been this way. Tim Wu’s The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads might be described as brief and action-packed history of advertising. But Wu is well aware of the cultural, moral and epistemological implications of his investigation. The mastery to be found in The Attention Merchants is Wu’s ability to let the story he is telling braid into the bigger picture about what’s going into our heads. Suffice it to say that after reading this book, you will be much more precise when you decide whether to want to spend – or pay – your attention to anything.
Tim Wu Suggests Spend Our Attention on The Attention Merchants: “How can my product be a deliverance for you?” [Rick Kleffel/Narrative Species]
(Image: Tim Wu, Campaign Event, Summer 2014, CC-BY-SA)
