Commercial exploitation of idle attention is a recent development

Evidence

But there is more to the posters’ allure. Significantly, they catch the viewer on his way somewhere, the “in between” moments of the day that are in the interstices of our more purposeful mental engagements. That is, times when one might be bored, waiting for a streetcar, or simply strolling around, looking for something to catch the eye. The attentional habit of gazing at the world with nothing better to do has doubtless been a human practice since the species emerged. But its exploitation for commercial purposes is relatively new. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 65

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the interstitial moments of attention that advertisers eventually learned to harvest — a core concept for the book.
• SEED: Angle: the ‘in-between moment’ as a contested commercial space, from streetcar waits to today’s phone-scrolling dead time.
• XREF: connects to: Business models now give goods away free in exchange for user attention.; Free digital services are paid for by users’ attention.; Continuous classroom monitoring is marketed as an empowering selling point — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 535 (+5 more)