Serialized radio was the first medium to command rapt family attention at home.

Evidence

When Amos ‘n’ Andy had come on, Templin noticed something peculiar at this friend’s house: the entire family stopped what it was doing to gather around the radio and listen intently for the show’s entire duration. Radio, he rightly concluded, could not only capture attention, it could do so inside the customer’s home. It could cause a whole family to ignore one another and listen in rapt silence. … We have spoken of the mind’s impressive ability to shut the door to the outside world; but while Amos ‘n’ Andy was on, people were apparently glad to fling it wide open. The rapt attention was different from what the musical acts had. Templin recognized that this was an astonishing power, if it could only be harnessed. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 301

Categorization

• XREF: Builds on the book’s earlier discussion of radio music as pure ambiance; this is the moment listening becomes focal concentration. Connects to the sitting-room ‘interruption myth’ debates in media history.