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The Do List

Chris Hayes’ ‘Sirens’ Call’ Examines the Fight for Attention in Modern Age

The MSNBC host’s book is a timely guide to social media, the attention industry and the effect both are having on consumers.
Andrew DeMillo, Associated Press

A grey book cover with block lettering and neon green geometric pattern.
‘The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource’ by Chris Hayes. (Penguin Press)

It’s no new big news that we’re living in an era of distraction. States are trying to clamp down on cell phones in schools, social media has been called a health risk for kids and some are trying undergo various “digital detox” practices.

With The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource MSNBC host Chris Hayes isn’t trying to join an already crowded shelf of books warning of the ills of being online 24/7. Instead he’s exploring how we got to this point, and the result is a fascinating history of what he calls the attention age.

Hayes’ book describes how attention has become a commodity, with social media, websites and news outlets all competing for a limited number of eyeballs.

“Public discourse is now a war of all against all for attention,” Hayes writes.

Given the debate over the future of TikTok and the role Elon Musk and other tech figures are playing in the Trump administration, Hayes’ book is a timely guide that’s not just about the attention industry that social media is consuming.

He also explains the impact that the fight for attention is having on the consumers themselves, and how public discourse has devolved from the hours-long Lincoln-Douglas debates to personal attacks on X.

Hayes notes how fitting of a messenger he is for exploring this topic, given his role working for a cable news network that’s also competing for the finite amount of attention.

Sirens is a unique approach to a topic that is on everyone’s minds, but avoids feeling like a retread of already mined material on the topic.

Probably the only weak portion is when Hayes explores potential solutions that felt incomplete like “attentional farmers’ markets” for people who are tired of their attention being treated by companies like a commodity. Those proposals, however, at least offer hope that the existing attention economy isn’t our destiny.

‘The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource’ by Chris Hayes is out now via Penguin Press.

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