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

Chris Hayes’s new book fucks with you. 

What he posits in The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource is, like all nonfiction texts, there in the title. It’s that our attention – yours, mine, everyone’s – is a resource, and thinking of it as such may a different, new consideration for many. Not for Hayes. 

He's done his homework here. While incorporating philosophical insights, scientific studies, political theory, research and all the other dense pieces of writing most of us will never get around to reading, Hayes manages to synthesize, to simplify, and to create one of the most important arguments of our time: our attention is preyed upon. And it’s getting worse. 

It’s the type of text that, after you read it, you feel changed for the better. Or, at the very least, you wish to change for the better. 

And it fucks with your head. Hayes documents many of the ways that our attention is limited and drawn from this thing to another thing, a lot of it from the internet, most of it from our phones, and a disgusting amount from social media platforms. While reading the writing, you catch yourself reaching for your phone. And you stop. It gets you.

At times Hayes’ book reads like a manifesto. It should. Our attention is limited. It is a finite thing. Where are we putting it? 

Hayes presents his full case as a kind and thoughtful guide, structuring his well-documented and well-studied argument so as never to lose readers in the weeds. He holds your hand by repeating important claims or ideas, but he never devolves to where he is condescending or patronizing. It’s a weighty bit of thinking, yet it’s a breeze of a read. 

Most importantly, though, is what Hayes contends. Of course our attention is important. Ask anyone with a child who got hurt in the seconds while he looked away. But it’s more than that. Hayes asserts that we no longer have control over our attention. It's the drawn of the siren. It’s partly not our fault. 

Am I lobbying that this become a staple text in education, particularly for high school students? It wouldn’t hurt. 

The problem is that, in order to read it, I’m not so sure they could pay attention for that long.