Bored office workers formed an attention network rivaling major broadcasters

Evidence

Hundreds of millions of bored office workers sit in front of computers forwarding emails, blogging, IMing, and playing….These distracted corporate employees have accidentally created the Bored at Work Network (BWN)—a huge people-powered network with even greater reach than traditional networks like CNN, ABC, or the BBC. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 898

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the workplace as the first and largest accidental attention platform, predating social media.
• XREF: Echoes the office-leisure dynamic in The Time Bind and later workplace-surveillance literature. — connects to: Office computers with fast connections created a vast new attention harvest — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 897; The networked audience differs from broadcast audiences in enabling active participation — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 593; TV channels operate as banks loaning out attention capital — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 160

Broader Connections

• Office computers with fast connections created a vast new attention harvest #expands (0.78) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 897
• The networked audience differs from broadcast audiences in enabling active participation #complicates (0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 593
• TV channels operate as banks loaning out attention capital #expands (0.70) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 160