The remote control actually reduced viewers’ conscious control over attention

Evidence

In retrospect, the word “remote control” was ultimately a misnomer. What it finally did was to empower the more impulsive circuits of the brain in their conflict with the executive faculties, the parts with which we think we control ourselves and act rationally. It did this by making it almost effortless, practically nonvolitional, to redirect our attention—the brain had only to send one simple command to the finger in response to a cascade of involuntary cues. In fact, in the course of sustained channel surfing, the voluntary aspect of attention control may disappear entirely. The channel surfer is then in a mental state not unlike that of a newborn or a reptile. Having thus surrendered, the mind is simply jumping about and following whatever grabs it. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 634

Categorization

• DEFINE: Redefines ‘remote control’ as a misnomer: the device was never about rational control but about bypassing it.
• XREF: Connects to the broader attention-era theme across the book that ‘empowering’ tools can actually disempower; also resonates with later platform-era work like Infinite Scroll design. — connects to: The remote control, DVR, and streaming shifted ad-viewing control to viewers — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1104; Attention-maximizing technologies can reduce rather than increase user control over attention — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 635; The computer screen commands even more focused attention than television — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 665 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• The remote control, DVR, and streaming shifted ad-viewing control to viewers #contradicts (0.95) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1104
• Attention-maximizing technologies can reduce rather than increase user control over attention #corroborates (0.92) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 635
• The computer screen commands even more focused attention than television #expands (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 665
• Ambient TV’s defining aesthetic is its dispensability of attention #contradicts (0.75) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 592
• Constant mediatized interruption corrodes attention to others and to self #qualifies (0.72) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 403