The Sirens’ Call

Attention, in the account of MSNBC and podcast host Chris Hayes, has become a commodity, a resource extracted from people who are increasingly alienated from it. He sees only one parallel for the shift: the transformation of labor in the nineteenth century. Aided by a few tech firms, he writes, the line between public and private came down in about a decade, and the most valuable companies in history are now built on harvesting attention. Hayes traces how this attention capitalism has reordered politics and society, and how the sirens of his title, designed to compel, now go off in bedrooms and kitchens at all hours. The book reached number one on the New York Times best-seller list.

Barack Obama included it among his favorite books of summer 2025, describing it as a helpful introduction to how the attention economy and social media have distorted democracy and changed daily life.