CM 065: Tim Wu on Reclaiming Our Attention

4 snips

Dec 5, 2016

Tim Wu, a Columbia Law School professor and author of The Attention Merchants, delves into the hidden effects of constant attention demands in our lives. He discusses how advertising shapes our decisions, tracing its roots from wartime propaganda to modern clickbait. Tim shares fascinating stories, like early suffragettes promoting cigarettes and the rise of Consumer Reports against ads. He emphasizes the importance of creating ‘sacred spaces’ and highlights the need for genuine human connections to reclaim our attention in a monetized world.

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INSIGHT

Attention as a Harvested Resource

Attention is a resource that businesses harvest from us like commodities.
We are the resource being exploited by the 'attention merchants'.

INSIGHT

Attention Determines Life Options

What we pay attention to shapes what options we perceive in life.
Attention sets the menu for our decisions and identity.

ANECDOTE

Benjamin Day's Penny Press Innovation

Benjamin Day created the penny press in the 1830s by selling newspapers at a loss but with exciting stories.
He made money by reselling large audiences' attention to advertisers, inventing an ad-supported business model.

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What is the hidden impact of constant demands on our attention? How does it affect how we think, how we act, and how we live? We have clickbait on our mobile devices and computer screens, ads on buses, and commercials on radio and TV. But as Tim Wu, author and Professor at Columbia University Law School points out, this is a fairly recent development that has turned into a constant monetization of our attention. Tim is the author of three books: Who Controls the Internet?, The Master Switch, and most recently, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. He has written for the New Yorker, the Washington Post, Forbes, and Slate magazine. He points out that this constant barrage of messaging actually shapes who we are, often without our realizing it. Highlights from our conversation include: How does what we are exposed to determine what we decide? The connection between early war propaganda and the rise of advertising How the science of advertising was built on engineering demand Why early suffragettes were hired to sell cigarettes How the Paris poster period led to an early revolt against the attention merchants How Consumer Reports grew out of frustration with ads The original remote control took the shape of a gun to blow away commercials Bringing TVs into our homes meant attention merchants now had more access 1950s provided a captive prime time TV programming audience for advertisers How advertising convinces us that to be individuals we need to buy things How novelty and unpredictability makes things addictive How idealistic tech founders work against own values in reliance on ads Tech innovation of today focused more on getting inside our minds and featuring ads Why harvesting captures so well how our attention is sought and used How such a tiny sector of the economy has such a big impact on us and how we live How spending time with others is actually a revolt against advertising Where are the sacred spaces in our lives? What is the role of public virtue in decision making today? Episode Links Tim Wu @superwuster William James Benjamin Day Herbert Kitchener George Washington Hill French Poster Period Singletasking by Devora Zack Timothy Leary Mad Men Coca-Cola Commercial Charlie Brown Christmas Special Space Invaders You’ve Got Mail Addiction by Design by Natasha Dow Schull Buzzfeed Netflix Temenos If you enjoy the podcast, please rate and review it on iTunes. For automatic delivery of new episodes, be sure to subscribe. As always, thanks for listening!