Technology

The Attention Merchants: 8 key ideas

by Tim Wu

The core ideas of The Attention Merchants, each in under a minute, written in our own words. Want the full depth? Get the book.

1. IDEA 1 OF 8

   Attention became a product

   Wu argues that a major industry has grown up around capturing human attention and selling it to advertisers.

   He traces this business from nineteenth-century newspapers to modern social media. Each new medium has been used for the same purpose.

2. IDEA 2 OF 8

   Cheap newspapers began the trade

   Wu describes the penny press of the 1830s, newspapers sold below cost and paid for by advertising.

   Readers became the product sold to advertisers. Because the paper was cheap, it could reach far more people than older papers did.

3. IDEA 3 OF 8

   Posters and propaganda grew

   Wu describes how advertising and government propaganda, especially during the First World War, showed the power of capturing attention.

   These campaigns taught governments and companies how to shape public feelings on a large scale.

4. IDEA 4 OF 8

   Radio brought ads into homes

   Wu describes how radio carried advertising into people's homes.

   Sponsors shaped programmes. Families gathered around the set, and companies paid to have their products mentioned in the shows. The home became a new space for selling.

5. IDEA 5 OF 8

   Television perfected the model

   Wu describes how prime-time television gathered huge audiences, making it extremely valuable for advertisers.

   The more people watched at the same time, the more advertisers were willing to pay for those minutes. Attention was gathered in bulk.

6. IDEA 6 OF 8

   The internet followed

   Wu describes how early websites and email turned to advertising.

   Clicks became a new measure of attention. Counting visits and clicks let sellers measure attention far more precisely than ever before, hour by hour.

7. IDEA 7 OF 8

   Social media harvests attention

   Wu argues that social media companies have become the most powerful attention merchants.

   They collect data to target ads. Their systems learn what holds each person's attention longest and then show more of it.

8. IDEA 8 OF 8

   People push back

   Wu describes moments when people revolted against excessive advertising.

   He argues that we can reclaim our attention. Each time, Wu says, public feeling turned against the most intrusive forms and demanded clearer limits on them.