The countercultural attentional revolution failed because TV viewing never declined.

Evidence

Of course, to succeed at selling a new snake oil, albeit one with a spiritual flavor, advertisers would still need one thing—access to the public mind. That they would have it points to the main reason why the hoped-for attentional revolution of the 1960s and 1970s ultimately failed. It was nothing to do with the message, which was, in fact, powerfully delivered and readily embraced. Rather, the failure was owing to one often unremarked fact: over the 1960s and 1970s, most people simply did not stop watching television. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 567

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth checking whether TV viewing time actually plateaued or even rose through the 1970s, and whether any group did quit entirely.