Perhaps the most sophisticated contribution to the genre ... Hayes is right to deplore the commodification of intellectual life. But one can wonder whether ideas are less warped by the market when they are posted online to a free platform than when they are rolled into books, given bar codes, and sold in stores ... The panic over lost attention is, however, a distraction.
Hayes observes his subject from multiple angles, noting that attention isn’t just something exploited by sinister forces ... Occasionally the book gets a little textbook-y ... Overall, Hayes keeps it lively ... I wasn’t entirely satisfied with Hayes’ ideas for remedies.
Hayes persuasively and heartrendingly argues ... In perhaps the most surprising section of the book, Hayes examines his life as a famous person, one who involuntarily attracts the attention of strangers when he walks down the street. Here his writing comes alive with an emotional truth, an unflattering one offered in the service of his subject.
The fracturing of attention in our moment has some distinctive features, and Hayes, a cable news anchor with a professional interest in getting attention, is exceptionally attuned to several of them ... While Hayes records the familiar self-loathing that comes from staring at a screen too much, the most troubling and most valuable parts of his book examine the warping effect of scattered, easily redirected attention on public discourse and politics ... Distraction has always been big business, but the immersive quality of digital media, in his account, makes it much more powerful and toxic ...
Hayes may also be taking too simple a view of Trump’s appeal when he argues that the fact that Trump got talked about was more important than what he talked about, however preposterous or offensive.
