The crisis of attention is a subject of long-standing public interest. New technologies, from the printing press to the novel to the television, have sparked critical analyses of the potential dangers and rewards of how humans spend their limited time.
The latest analyst is MSNBC host Chris Hayes, whose book, The Sirens’ Call, takes its title from the Odyssey. “The Sirens of lore and the sirens of the urban streetscape both compel our attention against our will,” Hayes writes. “And that experience, having our mind captured by that intrusive wail, is now our permanent state, our lot in life. We are never free of the sirens’ call.” Circe’s role in the Odyssey is to warn Odysseus of the danger of listening to the call of the Sirens. Mine is to warn readers who might be interested in the subject of attention to take theirs somewhere other than Hayes’s book.
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