The Sirens' Call

“Attention is the substance of life. Every moment we are awake we are paying attention to something, whether through our affirmative choice or because something or someone has compelled it. Ultimately, these instants of attention accrue into a life.”

In Hayes’s own words, the succinct phrases highlight the essential, universal nature of attention. By linking attention directly to one’s accumulated existence, he underscores its profundity and frames any external claim upon it as potentially existential.

“Now our deepest neurological structures, human evolutionary inheritances, and social impulses are in a habitat designed to prey upon, to cultivate, distort, or destroy that which most fundamentally makes us human.”

Hayes’s diction—words like “prey,” “distort,” and “destroy”—creates a sense of assault on our very humanity. This dire tone reinforces his argument that we inhabit an attention-driven environment that not only shapes our behaviors but can undermine our autonomy and well-being.

“Information is abundant; attention is scarce. Information is theoretically infinite, while attention is constrained. This is why information is cheap and attention is expensive.”

Hayes employs an economic metaphor to illustrate the paradox of our modern information environment, emphasizing that while data flows without limit, our capacity to process it is severely finite. This juxtaposition underscores the competitive value of human attention and sets the stage for understanding why attention has become such a coveted resource.

“The only stimulus so far found that will break through this barrier, is the subject’s own name.”

Drawing on psychologist Neville Moray’s research, Hayes highlights the unique potency of social attention. This quote reveals that even when our brains are busy filtering out extraneous stimuli, deeply personal identifiers—like our own names—pierce our cognitive defenses, underscoring the evolutionary and psychological significance of self-relevance.

“But the most successful forms of attention capture of our age almost entirely circumvent the problem of holding voluntary attention, opting instead for an increasingly effective form of iteratively grabbing our attention over and over again.”

In this passage, Hayes introduces the “slot machine model” as a metaphor for modern digital engagement strategies. The quote illustrates the shift from attempting to sustain focus for extended periods to repeatedly interrupting and re-engaging our attention—a hallmark of the current media landscape that prioritizes constant, brief bursts of stimulation over prolonged concentration.

“Many participants elected to receive negative stimulation over no stimulation—especially men: 67% of men (12 of 18) gave themselves at least one shock during the thinking period.”

Hayes uses this empirical finding to illustrate the discomfort people feel when left alone with their thoughts. The statistic reveals a deep-seated aversion to introspection, reinforcing the chapter’s argument that our craving for diversion is both instinctual and self-destructive.

“I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.”

Pascal’s assertion, cited by Hayes, encapsulates the central paradox of human restlessness. The quote underscores how the inability to be alone with one’s thoughts is a fundamental source of misery, setting the stage for the discussion on our compulsive need for distraction.

“This is what Søren Kierkegaard observed a few centuries after Pascal. Boredom, he wrote in his best-known work, Either/Or (1843), is the ‘root of all evil.’”

This passage, presented in Hayes’s discussion of historical perspectives, employs a clear metaphor to highlight boredom’s dangerous potential. It links existential malaise with moral decay, suggesting that our modern fixation on avoiding idleness may have considerable ethical and psychological consequences.

“The cry is the original human siren call, and the attention it commands is the foundation of the propagation of our species.”

Hayes’s use of the infant’s cry as a metaphor underlines the primal and evolutionary significance of social attention. This quote illustrates how the most basic human signal—the cry—serves as an inescapable call to caregivers, establishing attention as a life-sustaining force from the very beginning.

“She was ours now, and I remember feeling an enormous chunk of my attention basically break off from myself like an iceberg and float to her. It would never come back.”

This personal anecdote conveys the transformative impact of parenthood on one’s focus and priorities. The imagery of attention detaching like an iceberg underscores the irreversible and all-consuming nature of social bonds established at birth.

“Social attention is like sunlight for a plant: we need it to live. We stretch toward its presence; we shrivel in its absence.”

Here, Hayes employs a simile to encapsulate the necessity of social attention in human life. The comparison emphasizes both the life-giving and sustaining qualities of being noticed by others, as well as the detrimental effects of its deprivation, reinforcing social attention as essential to our well-being.

“Even though this negative attention leaves you feeling raw and bruised, you end up compulsively seeking out more and more of it.”

This quote reveals the paradox of social attention: the more it wounds, the more it entices, trapping individuals in a cycle of relentless pursuit. Hayes’s language emphasizes how even adverse feedback becomes addictive, highlighting the self-perpetuating nature of modern fame.

“‘Willy Loman never made a lot of money,’ she says. ‘His name was never in the paper. He’s not the finest character that ever lived. But he’s a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He’s not to be allowed to fall into his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.’”

This excerpt from Linda Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman underscores the fundamental human need for recognition, even in its most minimal form. The repetitive insistence on “attention” reflects the desperate, almost sacred quality of being seen and validated, a theme that Hayes argues is central to our social existence.

“‘We weren’t meant to live this way,’ you will often hear people say about any and all aspects of modern life—fluorescent-lit cubicles, packed subway cars, drive-thru fast food—and in some sense I suppose they’re right, though ‘meant to’ carries a sense of ultimate purpose and design that is hard to make sense of in a secular context.”

This observation underscores the central critique of modern existence that Hayes develops. The phrase “We weren’t meant to live this way” demonstrates a longing for a more authentic, less commodified way of life, highlighting the inherent tension between natural human needs and the Alienation and Loss of Autonomy in the Digital Age.

“Over time, the commodified logic of the attention market drives the price of this resource down, which is to say it cheapens the very substance of our life.”

This statement encapsulates Hayes’s central critique of the attention economy. By equating the devaluation of attention with a reduction in the quality of our inner lives, the quote employs a powerful economic metaphor to illustrate how relentless monetization erodes our capacity for meaningful thought and connection, resulting in, for example, The Fragility of Democratic Discourse Under Attention Capitalism.

“We used to colonize land, that was the thing you could expand into. And that’s where money was to be made…They are now trying to colonize every minute of your life…They’re coming for every second of your life.”

Bo Burnham’s metaphor illustrates how modern attention markets relentlessly invade every moment of our existence. By comparing the historical conquest of land to the contemporary capture of our time, the quote powerfully underscores the all-consuming, invasive nature of digital attention capture.

“In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.”

This quote, drawn from Herbert Simon’s foundational insight, centers the paradox at the heart of the Information Age. By juxtaposing the abundance of data with the scarcity of human attention, Hayes underscores the central challenge of our era and establishes the basis for understanding the modern “attention economy.”

“Which is to say: the information age must also be the attention age. The two are inseparable because information consumes attention.”

This statement introduces the chapter’s central thesis. Hayes uses it to illustrate that as our access to information has expanded to near-infinity, our limited attention becomes the primary resource, binding the evolution of digital culture to the inevitable struggles of managing and monetizing human focus.

“You can never defeat spam; you can only manage it.”

This quote establishes spam as an inevitable byproduct of the digital era—a “law of physics” in the attention economy. Hayes uses this observation to underscore that the endless barrage of unwanted information is a structural challenge, not a temporary glitch, revealing the inherent limits of our efforts to control digital noise and highlighting the necessity of actively Resisting the Siren Call Through Individual and Collective Remedies.

“A debate is a kind of attentional regime, a formal means of regulating where and how attention will flow.”

Hayes’s use of the term “attentional regime” here highlights the structured nature of the Lincoln—Douglas debates, emphasizing that the format itself regulated public focus and discussion. This quote highlights the idea that the sustained, deliberate exchange of ideas in these debates was essential for deep democratic discourse—a sharp contrast to today’s fragmented, fast-paced media environment.

“When you choose, as Trump does, to constantly seek attention at the expense of persuasion and likability: you become one of the most reviled figures in American life.”

This quote encapsulates the central paradox of Trump’s strategy. Hayes uses it to underscore that prioritizing attention over meaningful persuasion, while effective in dominating the news cycle, ultimately alienates voters and devalues the substance of public discourse.

“A big lie is often more attentionally compelling than a list of small truths.”

This quote focuses on a core insight of Hayes’s argument by contrasting the magnetic pull of a single, sensational falsehood with the diffuse impact of numerous minor facts. The statement highlights how modern attention markets favor bold, provocative narratives that capture immediate public interest, even when they undermine factual discourse—an effect that has deep implications for the quality of public debate in the digital age.

“Are we really spending the precious hours of our waking, nonworking lives doing ‘what we will’? Or has the conquering logic of capitalism penetrated our quietest, most intimate moments?”

This quote introduces the central dilemma of the chapter, highlighting the tension between our ideal self-directed pursuits and the reality imposed by the relentless demands of attention capitalism. Hayes uses this provocative question to underscore how digital technologies and corporate interests have invaded our most personal spaces, forcing us to confront whether our true desires are being replaced by engineered distractions.