The attention industry did not exist a century ago

Evidence

This book explains how our current state of affairs came to be. It is the consequence of the dramatic and impressive rise of an industry that barely existed a century ago: the Attention Merchants. Since its inception, the attention industry, in its many forms, has asked and gained more and more of our waking moments, albeit always, in exchange for new conveniences and diversions, creating a grand bargain that has transformed our lives. In the process, as a society and individually, we have accepted a life experience that is in all of its dimensions—economic, political, social, any way you can think of—mediated as never before in human history. And if each bargain in isolation seems a win-win, in their grand totality they have come to exert a more ambiguous though profound influence on how we live. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 14

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the book’s central term ‘attention merchants’ and the ‘grand bargain’ framework.
• XREF: connects to: Attention scarcity plagued writers and scholars centuries before digital media — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 53; The attention economy predates digital technology by 150 years — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 62; Attention management predates modernity and originates in classical rhetoric. — Michael H. Goldhaber, The Attention Economy and the Net, 5 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Human attention went largely untapped commercially before the nineteenth century. #corroborates (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 80
• Commercial exploitation of idle attention is a recent development #corroborates (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 65
• Mass-scale attention harvesting began with advertising in the 1890s-1920s #qualifies (0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24
• Attention theory shifted from passive submission to active investment around 1750 #corroborates (0.70) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 357