The Attention Merchants:
The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads
By | Tim Wu
First things first!
So let’s first check out a few excerpts
from Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition [1979],
before we go into Tim Wu’s read!
1.
The Field: Knowledge in Computerised Societies
It is common knowledge that the
miniaturisation and commercialisation of machines is already changing the way
in which learning is acquired, classified, made available, and exploited. It is
reasonable to suppose that the proliferation of information-processing machines
is having, and will continue to have, as much of an effect on the circulation
of learning as did advancements in human circulation (transportation systems)
and later, in the circulation of sounds and visual images (the media).
Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself,
it loses its “use-value.”
It is widely accepted that knowledge has
become the principle force of production over the last few decades, this has already
had a noticeable effect on the composition of the work force of the most highly
developed countries and constitutes the major bottleneck for the developing
countries.Nevertheless, it has strong credibility, and in that sense our choice
of this hypothesis is not arbitrary. It has been described extensively by the
experts and is already guiding certain decisions by the governmental agencies
and private firms most directly concerned, such as those managing the
telecommunications industry. To some extent, then, it is already a part of
observable reality.
Now
over to Tim Wu
In this Tim Wu's profound read titled, The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble
to Get Inside Our Heads, he talks about these dangerous ‘attention
merchants’ who are on a journey – a journey to stealing our data!
He euphemistically words it as 'attention-economics,'
chartered by 'Attention Merchants' who have made it their business to get into
your business. Well, Tim Wu is also the originator of the term "net
neutrality."
Reproducing here, the blurb to the book!
In nearly every moment of our waking
lives, we face a barrage of advertising enticements, branding efforts,
sponsored social media, commercials and other efforts to harvest our attention.
Over the last century, few times or
spaces have remained uncultivated by the "attention merchants,"
contributing to the distracted, unfocused tenor of our times.
Tim Wu argues that this is not simply the
byproduct of recent inventions but the end result of more than a century's
growth and expansion in the industries that feed on human attention.
From the pre-Madison Avenue birth of
advertising to TV's golden age to our present age of radically individualized
choices, the business model of "attention merchants" has always been
the same.
He describes the revolts that have risen
against these relentless attempts to influence our consumption, from the remote
control to FDA regulations to Apple's ad-blocking OS.
But he makes clear that attention
merchants grow ever-new heads, and their means of harvesting our attention have
given rise to the defining industries of our time, changing our nature - cognitive,
social, and otherwise - in ways unimaginable even a generation ago.
How prophetic Lyotard has been almost
four decades ago! And how profound Tim Wu expostulates on the former’s thoughts
with such finesse and such intensive detail!
'Literature always anticipates life. It
doesn't copy it but moulds it to it's purpose.'
How perfect the Wilde’ian quote fits this
occasion to a tee!
image: missourieducationwatchdogdotcom
image: missourieducationwatchdogdotcom
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