The Formula for Capturing Your Attention, Price of Fame, & Algorithms as Editors — With Chris Hayes

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2025-02-26

YouTube video id: qBFCLDGEwCo

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBFCLDGEwCo

MSNBC host Chris Hayes is here to talk
with us about attention online Fame and
what it's doing to all of us that's
coming up right after this welcome to
Big technology podcast a show for
cool-headed nuance conversation of the
tech world and Beyond Today we're joined
by Chris Hayes he is the MSNBC host of
Allin with Chris Hayes and the author of
the number one best-selling new book the
sirens call how attention became the
world's most endangered resource it's
going to be a great show and so excited
to wel welcome Chris Chris great to see
you welcome to the show it's great to be
here so you wrote a whole book about
attention it's number one New York Times
bestseller and I just find it funny that
a cable news TV guy wrote a book about
attention why because because I well to
me it makes perfect sense because the
whole reason I wrote the book is
precisely because all I do is work on
getting and holding people's attention
you know no the weird thing to me craft
of it but the weird thing to me is that
like yeah you're you are warning a
little bit about how our attention is
being exploited while at the same time
uh doing that in your day job and look I
I understand that you're like the one
that would tell us about it the most but
that was this one thing that I found
kind of interesting as I was reading it
is like all these companies are working
to gather your attention and they're
exploiting it and that's what cable news
does and and you even admit it in the
book yeah although I think it actually
is kind of different like one of the
things I would say two things one is
that I think it's possible to do do good
good work in any medium like there are
people who do great stuff on Tik Tok
great stuff on Instagram reals there are
people posting on Blue Sky and x and
threads that I like learn from there are
amazing YouTube videos that I've learned
a ton from so like I think it's
important to stre to separate out the
like content that people are making
within the structural confines and then
the overall structure of those attention
markets um and so I think that
that that's an important distinction
like you can do good work in cable news
the same way you can do good work on
YouTube and good work in Tik Tok there's
a question of what is the overall
structural genre do and what its
intentional incentives are but I also
think there's something specific about
the current Universe of algorithmic
driven platforms that's distinct from
Network TV from cable news from a lot of
stuff okay look uh full disclosure I
also work in Cable cable news I'm a CNBC
contributor so I'm on TV about once a
week so I'm not like throwing rocks at
the medium uh but it is interesting and
you even talk about in your book just
the way and we're going to get into big
Tech but the way that you hold people's
attention through the hour or through a
couple hours on TV so before we move on
to Big Tech I just want you to share a
little bit because I found it
interesting how cable news does hold our
attention the most interesting thing to
me is like you describe this view that
people have that it's up to the anchors
but it's really up to the audience well
I think it's both right I mean I think
that basically one of the things you
learn is that attention and attentional
flows and interest are these sort of
forces that are outside of your control
they kind of like move in and out like
the wind and then you try to do with
them what you can but in terms of how
you do hold attention I mean one of the
things I I write about in the book is
that there's sort of these different
methods even on screen in a cable new
show like the the open to the show is
sort of loud and you know I got this
loud announcer voice we're like quick
cut quick cut quick cut we're trying to
it's like the headline for a story right
we're trying to grab your attention off
the top and then on the screen there's
all these like constant sources of
visual stimulus that are designed for
attention there used to be the crawl we
don't have to crawl anymore but that
there's like the lower thirds they're
alternating like there's constantly some
new visual stimulus right so that's
happening formally and then what I'm
trying to do is like hold people's
attention through basically the ancient
craft of rhetoric where I'm trying to
tell a story um do it in a compelling
way introduce narrative tension
introduce resolution have Revelations um
ethos posos logos like all that stuff
and those two approaches are kind of
side by side in the square of the screen
yeah it was interesting to read you
outline some of the things that we all
see all the time but maybe we don't pick
up in that open that big announcer voice
like as I've evolved this podcast this
podcast is 5 years uh old and as I
started it I was like welcome to Big
technology podcast and then I said oh no
we need that ramped up opening because
you see the audience data they leave if
there's not this engaging beginning also
the TV Cuts like you mentioned in your
book every couple seconds it's a cut
from a tight shot to a wide shot to a
tight shot to a graphic to right to
b-roll right like that's the that's the
classic cable thing like you don't have
you don't have that much visual stasis
um even though I personally love visual
stasis like I write in the book that
like I once told a television executive
that my my aesthetic Pinnacle was the
Charlie Rose show where there's just
like black behind him and then there's
him and a guest and that's it and I
could see this like look of like Terror
in the eyes of the executive I was
telling this because it was in a
conversation I was getting my show about
like what should my show look like and
it was just like no no no that doesn't
work yeah and look even for this show
we've been doing video recently for
Spotify and YouTube and I'm learning to
edit and it's like oh I'm actually
leaving it sometimes on the shot a
little too long we do need to alternate
it a bunch and you know to me I think
that as you were going through this
story you're talking about how do you
hold people's attention and you really
were very forthcoming and describing the
show's early challenges where you said
I'm going to do the show that I want to
do and then your rating suffered and so
then you had to learn to listen to the
audience yep yeah because I think I
thought that I think I thought
incorrectly that the idea that there was
some exogenous demand was totally a
fiction and that you could just point
the audience in the direction you wanted
them to and make them care about
anything and I think it's some level of
genuine Brilliance and skill that's
probably true like the the better you
are the more you can do obscure topics I
think now that I've done this for 12
years I'm probably better at getting
people's attention for things that they
wouldn't otherwise pay attention to I
think Rachel mat is like amazing at at
doing that um really really gifted
storytellers can do that Adam McKay did
a whole movie about climate change it
was like an enormous hit
but you also have to take seriously this
sense of audience interest and you have
to deal with it and wrestle with it and
work with it and against it however you
choose to but you have to start with
understanding it's a real thing yep like
for us I did a bunch of newsletters
early on in big technology history about
big Tech regulation and I thought
telling the story behind the story of
big Tech regulation was going to be the
thing that built an audience turns out
nobody cared now we're talking about AI
all the time it's very relevant to
people's lives to people's businesses
and so yeah there is that listening to
the audience but you can work within
what they want a little bit I think
that's interesting point that you point
interesting I'd be curious to hear you
talk about this because one of the
things I think that's really fascinating
about how media has evolved is that
older forms of media have more layers
between the people making the stuff and
the people whose job it is to like look
at the numbers and that's all collapsed
into one person so like independent
creators now who are on substack they
know exactly the data they get the data
this piece I wrote tanked this piece I
wrote did really well and not only do
they get the data which has been true
since chartbeat and last their
livelihoods depend on at a certain point
right like I'm now my livelihood depends
on the substack and if I write this kind
of article it generates Revenue in
subscribers if I write this kind of
article it doesn't a reporter of the New
York Times is insulated from that like
they have a salary their livelihood
doesn't go up or down like there's a
certain degree to which traffic is a
coin of the realm institutionally but
they don't have like a direct monetary
incentive in maximizing attention
and I think one of the things that's
really interesting about the New Media
landscape is that those attentional
incentives which I felt in intense but
somewhat attenuated ways in cable news
are now on every single individual
Creator yeah I mean as someone who's
doing a substack I can say that my life
probably resembles yours in some way in
the professional sense where like I'm
sure you get the print out of the hour
you see what segments did well which
segments didn't and you adjust and you
maybe not for every single segment but
you follow what the audience is telling
you and you have to go with them to a
certain extent now maybe they're
interested in a topic and you say I'm
going to do this in a way that nobody
did maybe with more nuance and then
they're going to respond to it that's my
responsibility but you are Guided by
what the audience is interested in do
you find there's also like the
interesting surprise and discovery of
that you know sometimes a thing that you
wouldn't have anticipated blows up which
is always a kind of pleasant feeling if
you do something that we've done things
and more more now I can see this when it
like kind of goes viral online or if I
do a segment that reaches out past the
concentric circles of like regular
viewers to people in my life who don't
watch cable news are like oh I saw that
thing and that that can be an
interesting metric to of a kind of
attentional success um that is can be
very gratifying particularly if it's
something that you did that you weren't
doing because you thought that's what
people were going to like you know no
doubt I mean if you're doing this work
you do need a seat it in with things
that you're interested in that may not
be guaranteed money makers right I mean
you could the cynical way of doing a
substack or a podcast and do well but
ultimately I don't know we're not going
to make as much as like an engineer
would that I cover so like to me it's I
don't I I'm willing to sacrifice money
if I'm going to be like all right let me
try to follow my curiosity this way well
that's also because and this is a key
point one I making the book someone like
yourself someone like myself all these
different people who who are doing this
kind of work right you're not doing it
just for attention in and of itself
there's something else you want to do
you want to say you want to inform
people you're interested in topics
there's another set of values that are
driving these decisions the decisions
are informed by these intentional
imperatives what will get attention what
will hold attention what will
iteratively create these relationships
in which people will pay attention to
your work but that is not the end of it
right that's the means to some end
what's different about the way the
platforms operate is that they have no
other end like Tik Tok exists for no
other purpose than to maximize the total
amount of
seconds of attention in the aggregate a
can same for meta it's the same for um
Snapchat to a certain extent it's the
same for
Google they don't have a purpose other
than this purpose and I think that
actually is part of the kind of toxicity
or alienation that these platforms
produce which is in other human contexts
attention is a means to an end in those
contexts it's just the end and of itself
I'm not going to take the platform side
here but I am going to push back on you
because what you're saying makes a lot
of sense um in theory but in reality the
discussion that we just had about how we
listen to the audience and how we see
different things in it actually works a
lot like the Tik Tock algorithm Works
where it follows its audience and the
algorithm will you know Moment by moment
decide is this a time that I try
something new like it says I know Chris
likes carpet cleaning right so it's
going to give you like the carpet
they're going to give you Carpet
Cleaning this is true by the way
everybody this is in the book that
carpet cleaning videos are one of
Chris's favorites and it's going to be
like all right well this guy's
definitely going to like grass mowing
but then it's going to take it like I
don't grass mowing as much yeah exactly
but it will show you the videos and then
it might show you uh a video of a damn
being cleared right but my point is that
it's not that's not that algorithmic
choice first of all it's not showing me
anything it's just a machine learning
algorithm that's like working on these
things right but it's not doing it
towards any
purpose like if I'm trying to show my
audience things it's because I Chris
Hayes a human being with an embodied
sense of purpose and things he wants to
do in a world a set of commitments a
worldview and principles things I think
that are important for people to know in
self-governance is trying to negotiate
that attention for that purpose the Tik
Tok algorithm has no purpose other than
that attentional purpose and this is
true even of like media companies even
NBC news or ABC news or Hollywood
producers and directors like they want
big hits yes but they're Al they're also
human beings that have like I like to
make comedies I want to launch this star
like there are other things it is
impossible for the algorithm to possess
that other thing right I guess as a
definitional matter without a doubt for
me well actually no they they do change
the algorithm like Facebook totally
Facebook said we want less news because
we want less disputes and so the entire
Facebook platform Changed by the way now
they want more news again it turns out
news is engaging and has a lot of
urgency so there are there are editors
and this by the way this always drove me
nuts about the platforms that they were
like we're not editors and it's just the
algorithm like give me editors and you
are making those choices the same as and
by the way isn't this the big uh thing
that people are all afraid about with
Tik Tok that there are editors right in
China who are making decis about what
our attention now obviously not proven
yet that's the worry could they will
they we don't know still people want it
banned which I understand right but well
it's funny when you were saying that I
almost when I was listing off the
platforms I almost included X in that
platform in that but that's not true
because X very clearly has an objective
other than attention which is the
political project of its owner right you
know what I mean so like there's a place
where like yes that attention is being
aggregated for a specific political pro
project that political project is
informed by what Elon musk's politics
are and what he wants to use a platform
for um although it also is a testament
to and this goes back to the worries
about Tik Tock right
the pulled and aggregated aggregated
attention of users at that scale is so
profoundly powerful that it's profoundly
powerful in Market terms if you're
engineering the algorithm solely for the
purpose of maximizing eyeballs but it
can be really valuable in other terms if
you're using it for other ends right if
in the sort of worst case scenario of
the kind of China Hawks who push the Tik
Tok bill that the Chinese Communist
party is like well we've got
we've got the eyes of 70 million Young
Americans we can make them believe
anything or in the case of X where I
think you really have seen the platform
used for a specific political purpose uh
I'm going to let this go in a moment uh
but this is interesting and I think we
should continue to talk about
this I'm not taking the platform side
here I see what you're saying but how is
that different from what the news does
you have Elon who has a political idea
let's say let's say that everything
about Tik Tok is true you have the
Chinese Communist Party who's steering
our attention then you have news
organizations let's you have MSNBC which
is more left leaning you have Fox more
right leaning they have a point of view
and they're pushing it that way and
they're responding to the audience in
the same way so where's the distinction
yeah it's a good question I don't I
don't in some ways I don't think what
musk is doing is that different than
what Rupert Murdoch Has Done Right which
are both attentional plays right I think
there are a few distinguishing effects
of like this tiar and trunch of digital
technology the first is the scale is
truly unprecedented like no one no
Network's ever had a billion viewers
like you're just you just have never
operated at that scale before like these
uh platforms operate at a scale that no
one's ever seen before the ubiquity is
totally unprecedented too you have never
had the constant access day in day out
wherever you are at any time to the
possibility of putting your attention on
this right you could carry a Newser or
book around with you but eventually that
ends but you've got this thing at all
times right so that's distinct too and
then the third aspect that I really
think is important that screw that that
really gets a part of our wiring that is
distinct is the social particularized
aspect of these platforms that can speak
to you specifically as a person in your
mentions can have you interact with
other
people I can speak to the viewer but I'm
still doing a broadcast thing like I
don't have access to that granular sense
of social attention and I try to speak
to them like I'm talking to you or like
I'm talking across a kitchen table but
it's limited by the
technology the kind of breakthrough
moment in some ways is being able to
scale social attention that all these
platforms can now do which I think makes
it a sort of distinct kind of operation
social attention your definition is when
someone says your name you're paying
attention yeah there's like you know
this it's called the cocktail party
effect but it's also the fact that you
can um that the Le fact that people can
pay attention to you
and the fact that the only people that
really pay attention to you for the
formative years of your life are people
that you have some relationship with
they're people that you know and they
know you you can pay attention to people
you don't know like you can Moon after a
boy band or you know have a favorite
actress or musician right but the
experience that you don't have is people
you don't know paying attention to you
incoming social attention from strangers
very very very small percentage of all
human beings ever have had it we call it
Fame there's a great book by Leo Brody
on this called U there's a great book by
Leo Brody on this which is the the sort
of history of
Fame and it's almost a cliche for a
reason that Fame makes people go crazy
the reason Fame makes people go crazy is
because we're not conditioned properly
to deal with social attention from
strangers what we have done is
democratized The Madness of Fame for
everyone now everyone can have an inflow
of social attention from strangers at a
scale and ubiquity that was completely
inconceivable for the entirety of human
Humanity until like 10 years ago yeah so
let's talk about this Fame aspect
because I do have some push back on that
part uh but I do want to hear your
experience with Fame because you speak
about it pretty candidly in the book
about what it was like to go from
someone who saw people looking at you
and you're like n that they must not
know me to now like you can see them out
of the corner of your eyes and you're
like oh yeah they probably know me from
the TV show so what has becoming a
famous person been like and what are the
trade-offs I mean the interesting thing
about Fame in this era is is incredibly
relative right because different people
have different levels of Fame so people
recognize me because I have a TV show um
at first there's
something kind of addictive and
beguiling but also strange and
alienating about like the Gaze of
strangers recognizing you and you could
also see in them that they're they're
going through a strange experience
because
often our facial recognition circuitry
is so profound and Powerful that we
recognize a face before we can place it
and so they'll have this sense where
they're like oh did we did you work at
Bank of America did we go to college
together were we like they they're
trying to place you and there's this
familiarity that doesn't match the fact
they don't know you then there's often
this moment of like oh right I don't
actually know you like and it's this
sort of amazing moment where you're
seeing the human wiring that was like
born of 250,000 years of evolution hit
up against the strangeness of modern
technology in terms of the incoming
experience I think that it can make you
it can make you vain it can make you
very aware of how other people are
perceiving you there's a level at which
like even if you walk if you leave the
house and like you're unkempt which I
never would have thought of before like
who cares but you definitely like the
loss of anonymity means that you then
are viewing yourself through someone
else's gaze at all times which is a
strange thing now of course I think it's
fair to say that like almost every woman
who lives in the world has experienced
some version of this so like it's a
little weird for me to be like oh it's
weird to like have a have a gaze upon
you it's like yes that is the existence
of being female in most parts of the
world and through history so for me it
was new um but I also think
that
that seeing yourself through someone
else's eyes as a default
State can be a very alienating outof
body experience it's like that moment
everyone has when you go into a dressing
room and there's a mirror at a weird
angle and you see an angle of yourself
you haven't seen before and you're like
oh what's that yeah is that me it's like
that experience that weirdness that you
feel like a lot all the time where
you're constantly moving between the
first person positionality so that's the
experience of like Fame specifically but
one of the contentions I have is that
like the internet is democratizing and
scaling exactly that experience right
that the weirdness of that is actually
happening at scale all the time to
people who are now really for the first
time getting that kind of feedback and
being seen by others they don't know
yeah it is interesting I mean I'm on air
way less than you like by I'm a tiny
teeny tiny fraction but I've definitely
had the experience recogniz you I'm sure
where people are like I we work together
and it's like I don't want to be like
you might know me from CNBC like you
might have seen it on the airport maybe
it's on in your office but it is always
kind of funny cuz like you know in the
back of your head you know what it is I
actually this funny I had a migration in
this because I used to play
dumb and now I just say because then the
interaction can get very
awkward like do we I know I know you're
a Bank of America no yeah Syracuse
University oh where do you live they
start to like go through so now it's
like if they're like I'm like I have a
TV show yeah and it's like that's free
oh so yeah this idea that it could
happen to everybody um I think let me
put this to you isn't this assuming that
we all post a lot yeah it's true so let
me just give you some data about who
posts and who doesn't post this from
2015 yeah um so Facebook is this is from
Inc a great story about it uh
aggregating the information Facebook has
shifted into crisis mode original
broadcast sharing post of consisting of
users own words and images fell 21% from
2014 to
2015 contributing to 5.5 decrease in
total sharing that was 10 years ago
right we could I think we could both
agree that original sharing from people
has fallen dramatically in fact most
users of social media I would argue
are lurkers are lurkers so this idea
that the internet is making us all
famous you know com like um then
commanding our attention is that really
true if most of us aren't posting at all
good question first of all I think
there's also a lot of commenting that's
happening and the and the commenting
stuff that happens is that same sort of
right social attention from strangers
like you see so much of Tik Tok is these
sort of wars with commenting I also
think that like teens have this
relationship where they're like through
different circles kind of regulating
these spaces that are in between
strangers but not close people
particularly through the way that
Snapchat works so like Snapchat is
basically all user generated content
like people aren't really posting that
kind of stuff on Snapchat and that's
where like a huge generation of people
are having their most intense
experiences of this and I think there's
a fair amount that's happening there of
like incoming from people that may not
be strangers but are also like at an
interesting
remove the other thing I would say is
that like I think the experience of it
for even lurkers has absolutely
transformed like social hierarchies and
Status aspirations how there's all this
polling that shows like people want to
be influencers like the social status of
getting attention has
unquestionably risen enormously over the
last 30 or 40 years I mean particularly
if you think back to like the greatest
Generation through the Boomers through
Gen X to now it is it is in all the
polling we have the idea of Fame or
social attention in the aggregate as an
aspiration has rocketed up in how people
think of it and then the other the other
way that I think is having this utterly
profound effect even if like the actual
user base of people posting isn't you
know um isn't that broad the possibility
still exists a but B A lot of the most
powerful people's minds are being
conditioned by precisely this cycle like
Elon Musk the
most powerful private citizen in America
maybe in the world probably in the world
yeah the most powerful private citizen
in the
world everything about how his brain
functions and how his behavior is
conditioned by precisely the kind of
like weird Vortex of social attention
that is the
like the the posters quicksand and I
think that's true for more and more
people that you see across the sort of
commanding Heights of you know culture
and and business and all these places so
it's conditioning the elite as well even
if like a lot of people are lurkers yeah
that I agree with I think it's
conditioning the elite without a doubt
um but this idea of the common man's
poster so to speak is go is really going
extinct because we've now even you take
X you take even Facebook today it's not
friends and family updates there's going
to be more news but it's becoming a for
you page there's this full Tick Tock
driving out yeah the tiktock ification
yeah yeah and I think that L this stuff
moves pretty quickly you know like
Facebook used to
be you know it it was way less tiktock
ified way more like posting about
friends and familys and or even like
next door or like you know it just goes
to show you though that if this was so
powerful right why did the Facebook Blue
app kind of fall out of favor because we
were all tagging each other and right we
were getting this attention I think in
some ways that the the the there's a
kind of um
this sort of learning process and that I
basically think that the Tik Tok model
which is like short form video married
to machine learning is the
like the way that slot machines out
compete everything on a casino floor I
just think that like out competes
everything that wins yeah I mean we're
going to clip this episode and put it up
on totally and and and and podcast I
mean it would be really interesting to
see how much that drives pod every
podcast is now getting a video why are
they getting a video so they could clip
it and put it on social is what is that
going to do as a podcast as this long
form medium on an open platform we'll
see right I actually so I have some
experience with this the video that
people watch of shows uh people will
stick around and watch it it's really
crazy because again we're talking about
this attention world and I agree with
you that we're like our attention is
fractured and it's being split into
these little things but I think just
like you wrote a book number one
bestseller about this stuff um people
have the attention span to and watch
just like this people will watch this
totally no no I agree and if we don't
post the video they're going to say
where's the video and I write about this
I write about this in the book which is
that just because you have these sort of
algorithmically optimized versions of
our attention on one in one channel
doesn't mean that all the other
appetites go away right the same way
that like the preponderance of
McDonald's around the world means that
people don't eat a million different
kinds of Cuisine right like the question
is we have different kinds of appetites
that can be appealed to in different
ways in at different scales and the set
of Institutions the structure of markets
the actual specific Technologies at play
the degree to which we have protocols
that are open or not right um whether
they're contained within platforms or
actually like RSS which is open all of
that conditions which of those kind of
appetites are being cultivated yeah I
there's one thing that you wrote that
talked about this uh this phenomenon
that I felt was so spot on I think I
captured this uh accurately what makes
life worth living is to be seen but we
are given a fa simile of that that we're
chasing anyone who's posted online knows
that it's like it's so empty yes but it
feels close to something profound yeah
is exactly it's so interesting how it
resembles it but ultimately it's so
unsatisfying and that's why actually you
talk a little bit about how when you get
thousands of positive comments okay
rolls right off you one negative one
yeah that hurts I also wonder too I'm
thinking about what you said about the
sort of like the drive towards less user
generated content of a a wider like
poster to lurker ratio is basically what
you're saying which is that's my
contention yeah like I wonder too like
how
much I I mean there's two things that
calls to mind one is that the incoming
toxicity of that social
attention even if it feels addictive a
little bit also ends ends up being like
more costly than beneficial so people
stop doing it see what I'm saying oh
that's that's 100% why they stopped it's
just like we all posted when when
Facebook came out I know you've been
we Facebook we felt that faim this is
exct your we felt that faim of attention
and we that it was the real thing but
after a couple years we all realized
this is not what I want right so that so
that that I think is interesting because
I think it relates to something else and
then finally relates to a sort of final
point I want to make which is so this
sort of like there's this appetite it's
speaking to but at a certain point you
start to be like uh I feel kind of sick
I've eaten too much junk food right
most of the platforms are seeing
declines in daily active users WhatsApp
is going up Snapchat but like most of
them are going Snapchat is going up
significantly yeah that's what I'm
saying WhatsApp is the most yeah partly
because it's a messaging app and not you
know Snapchat's going up the other ones
are going down even Tik Tok right and I
think that like there is I feel like
we're at a terminal point of all the
things I'm talking about the book like
this this engineered attentional
capitalism for the same reason that like
people started to turn off from posting
I think are G people are going to start
to turn off from the algorithms from Tik
Tok like they're we're leading towards a
moment of rejection where people are
going to want something different
there's a reason why your book is number
one there's a reason why Jonathan
Heights book sold so well it's because
even though if I have some points with
the main contentions here people are
feeling this disgust
with what they experience online yeah
and do want change but there's also like
but it's more than online I mean thing
about online is like I mean I I'm older
than you but like the idea that there's
like this thing online and there's Us in
the world is incred
increasing meshed you know like it's
just life like when the when the thing
when the phone tells you your screen
time is whatever 7 hours or whatever for
people you know 3 hours 7 hours whatever
it is it's like I was only awake for 14
I was like working for the other it's
like that's kind of like your life y but
I want to talk to you about one more
thing about this because because these
discussions are we've been talking about
how like the platforms are capturing our
attention for 30 minutes already right
um they almost always leave out the
agency of people and actually what you
just broke brought up about uh people
spending less time with social apps is
like a pretty interesting counterbalance
to this argument that these platforms
are so powerful like your book was not a
social dilemma type of book like they're
so powerful that they're holding our
attention and we have nothing to do but
uh be sucked in and they psychologically
manipulate us although there was some of
that um but ultimately we have agency
like you talk about how these things can
interrupt our attention flow uh just
like a waiter dropping a plate and it's
like well not really not if we don't let
them yeah um like we can turn off our
notifications we can I mean many people
don't know how to I will say it's not
that hard no I know but I'm telling you
I've had these conversations with many
people I mean then you also said like a
couple uh I maybe maybe in the same
chapter that you're wearing an Apple
Watch okay so you have it today right no
apple watch here I don't want that to do
to me what it can do to my mind so we
make these choices also to engage yeah I
mean to my the the the the title of the
book which is drawn from The Odyssey is
and it starts with Odysseus is on the
Mast and the whole point of that is that
the sirens that lure the man to his
death by warbling him in his ears and
then
odyusa to stuff wax in the ears of his
men and bind himself to the men like
that binding himself to the Mast is the
will right the the whole point of the
book is that there is a battle between
these two imperatives there's that sort
of compelled feeling that both works on
the wiring in our brains for compelled
attention which is the haptic bugs of
the phone and then there's the willful
part of us that can go into the
notifications and turn that off and that
those two things are sort of in this
kind of locked in this tension and part
of the reason that I don't think like
we're doomed is precisely because of the
willful part of ourselves like I I do
think that like to your point about
people not you know posting less because
it got too negative like I think the
fact that people broadly are not
enjoying this experience is actually a
real problem for for all of these
platforms I think we're about to have
you know the the I always compare to
food a lot because I think it attention
hunger function similarly they're like
they're both biological inheritances but
also reflections of our deep identity as
humans and you know I think we're kind
of in the like
late 7s recipe cookbook Jell-O salad
casserole era that sounds
perfect some people like it let's get
some after this but it's interesting
that you bring up food because
um sometimes people eat because they're
hungry often times people eat because
there well even more so they want to
fill a void yeah right makes them feel
good totally I mean America we we uh
comfort food as a big industry here yes
totally um and there are some parallels
I think with the so I'm curious what
what you think about what it says about
the state of the human condition or
maybe you know you focus a lot on the
American society the American condition
that we are so is it unhappy that we
have such big voids um that we fill them
with technology this way we we you talk
a lot about like how we're so Restless
we can't be still yeah what's wrong with
us well part of it I think is you know
in the chapter that I write a lot about
this in the sort of chapter on boredom
the experience of boredom like one of
the things I found enjoyable about it is
that some of this is just the human
condition or at least The Human
Condition under under sort of what we
might broadly call
like non- hunter gatherer life you know
post hunter gatherer life there's
actually some pretty good evidence that
like Hunter gathers or societies don't
really experience boredom um but they
don't have a word for it they don't have
a word for it Aboriginal just hang
Aboriginal people do not have a word for
it in fact I cite this really
interesting article by an anthropologist
in Australia who says that like among
the people the pu people that she
studies when they have to use the word
boredom they use the imported English
word boredom because they don't have
lexium for it naturally in their
language um so I think there are there
it's not necessarily The Human Condition
but the but but for hundreds of years
going back to non-hunter gather
societies all the way back in some ways
to the Buddha sitting under the banan
tree the stoics thinking about this
Blaise Pascal in the 16th century kard
in the 19th century like
part of our lot is to sit with our own
thoughts and figure out what to do with
that and that brings with it a kind of
craving for
diversion it hurts what's that it hurts
it hurts and I think different
technological circumstances cultivate
different ways of dealing with that in
the particulars of the American
condition I do think the fact that we
are spending more and more time alone as
an empirical fact um has a fair amount
to do with it and that's both happening
here and also generally a trend in
societies as they get richer people
spend more and more time alone and I
think there's a pretty profound
connection between people spending time
alone and people wanting the diversion
that the phone or the screen provides
you had a great anecdote in the book
where they asked people if they want to
just sit in a room alone or if they
wanted a shock they could shock
themselves one person decided that they
would take 190 shocks in a very short
period of time yes like over like 15
minutes or something as opposed to
sitting them with their thoughts yeah
and one of there's another interesting
thing about that there's a big gender
divide in that experiment is a
psychology experiment at University of
Virginia where like it's like onethird
of women choose to shock themselves and
two-thirds of men which I think is
pretty interesting and I feel
like that Dynamic plays out across the
internet in all kinds of ways why do you
think it's
interesting because I think that there
is a pretty profound gender divide in
how people relate to technology and
particularly this kind
of dopamine seeking Behavior around like
for instance sports betting right now um
which we know is you know rocketing up
in use and also has an enormous probably
nine to1 gender divide uh in who's using
it but it's also true with I think other
forms of um technology gaming is one of
them pornography that are like
hitting the button
basically and so you think men are just
like are more masochistic and therefore
happier to I think men themselves men I
think for a bunch of complicated reasons
having to do with like how masculin is
defined how we're raised maybe some
biological substrate have a harder time
sitting with their own thoughts yeah
would you shock yourself no but I would
I would be tempted I probably would try
it once yeah I'd probably try it once
maybe twice
well I think it would depend on how good
it
felt I mean the question is like yeah
Chris St statistically one of the two of
us is going to sit and shock themselves
in that room yeah yeah one and one third
of us actually that's
right yeah I mean I it's it's a really
interesting question like would I shock
myself I think I probably would just to
see but I do think like a bunch of
people when I wrote that when that UVA
study was in a a essay I wrote In The
New York Times it was really interesting
the reaction to that gender Point like a
lot of people really caught their eyes
and there's a lot of like sort of
interesting discourse that flowed from
it um yeah so speaking of pornography um
while I was reading your book I like
wrote down this kind of um snarky
thought uh but I'll just share it yeah
um which is is it good that we're moving
from like a manufacturing economy we've
already we' we've left that behind in
the US mostly to an only fancy conomy
yeah that's a great
question um
I mean I don't know I mean I
think I think meme coins and only fans
are like the ultimate monetization of
these processes you know
like and they're they both I mean the
hawk Tua trajectory was sort of the
perfect example in every way like she
was not an only fans but like she had
she like a a young conventionally
attractive woman she has a viral moment
saying something that's like related to
sex that has this kind of sex appeal to
it that is part of what catapults into
virality she then like launches a
podcast she then launches a meme coin
and it's like with an online betting
company with an online Bing company it's
like all of the different ways to try to
like in this particular form of
attention capitalism um so yeah there
feels like it does feel like an apex I I
I don't know I guess I have complicated
feelings like I don't want to be um
I don't want to be knee-jerk
puritanical I don't feel like those
women should be ashamed of themselves
but it also doesn't feel like a great
situation so let me brought brought how
I would describe it I'm going to brought
it out a little bit yeah I mean we've
really moved from an pyramidal which is
the other really important thing right
like it's one of these things
where it the the the dream is to hit it
big but a very very small people are
making a lot of money and most people
are not power laws of economics power
the same thing like substack they all
always come out and they'll talk about
how much their creators are earning
there's 10 that are making up half of
that totally I don't know if it's the
same on only fans ibly pretty close uh
but I'll broaden it out which is
that we don't spend as much time as we
used to making things and a lot of our
time is spent in this attention economy
uh like you talked about influencers are
you know this is a new thing that that
kids want to become more than an
astronaut now right um I mean Lord
Almighty well I'm doing it right right
so yeah no shade I mean I talk for a
living like so all right we're in it but
it's also interesting that like there's
there's
something like you talked about a little
bit spiritually off-putting I think
about happy to be you actually had a
really spiritually offputting is well
said yeah uh all culture from art to
music requires relent Relentless
self-promotion yeah this can't this
can't be good yeah and I think that like
one of the things that's weird is like
the inversion of the making in the
attention speaking seeking for the thing
you made like I I saw this
um I saw this
interview with Bobby Alto who I like and
I think is like interviews are fun yeah
she's interviews are fun she's like
genuinely talented um but someone was
like why did you start a podcast and she
was like oh just because it would get
more money I could make more money
that's such a Bobby Al tough response
yes and like it was both honest and also
sort of captured something essent about
this entire universe like if you listen
to It's really interesting to listen to
interviews or read profiles of Mr Beast
because when he describes and the guy's
like genuinely a genius like he's a
savant when he describes like oh how did
you end up making this specific form of
content and it's like I just studied the
algorithm like with an incredible degree
of technical skill and patience and like
figured out what it selected for and
like maximized and utilized and it
wasn't like and I'm not again this is
not shade on Mr Beast like what he's
doing is cool and good for him but it's
like I have this kind of Genex sense of
what did you want to make in the world
like there's a little bit of the this re
this re
reversing like what will sell out there
what will get attention and then you
reverse engineer and make that content
as opposed to I have this to
say I want to write this poem I want to
make this song like I want to make this
thing and there are still a lot of
people doing that like I have to say one
of the things I like about Tik Tok and
this is diminishing when you're talking
about like the sort of death of user
generated
content I've seen that happen to Tik Tok
even over the last three or four years I
don't know if you feel the same way but
like it used to be a lot more people
talking people doing dances funny CPS
little like almost kind of like little
sketches people did and now it's just
yeah it's all professional made for Tik
Tok ripping podcasts exactly these
people at they doing their hustle yeah
so yeah it is a shame that that's gone
away but I guess that's the cycle of all
uh social media um all right very
quickly on adtech yeah you had a really
interesting critique of adtech so for
context I worked in attech for a year
before I decided to go into journalism
um you said that it's not the data as
much as it's how it shapes your
attention what's your critique of adtech
exactly well mostly I mean there's two
critiques one one with adtech is that
like I weirdly feel like it hasn't
actually solved the problem that should
have solved which is kind of weird like
from the beginning of attention markets
the penny press under Benjamin day
magazines Billboards even there's some
great stuff about how like people would
do audits of billboards back in the 19th
century by walking standing on the
corner with a clicker because it's like
well how many people are going to see my
billboard right the question that's
bedeviled this entire industry is okay I
have a
product that I give away for free and
then I sell the audience against that
product I charge a nominal Fe the
audience is the thing I sell to
advertisers and The Advertiser is like
did people see my ad did it actually
affect to them did the magazines in
circulation get read or did they get
thrown in the trash and you would think
that in the 21st century with the
digital technology we have you would
able be able to like definitively answer
that question like are people seeing the
ads and are they working so I think one
of the interesting critiques of adtech
is that like it's still a lot more
opaque than you would imagine
the answer to this question like are
like there's a lot of indications that
there's just a lot of chum and maybe
fraud Fraud's a legal term but like a
lot of opacity to whether the eyeballs
you're paying for are the eyeballs that
are there right I would argue that
attech is has never really been about
the Impressions and always been about
the conversion so like are is your ad
leading to somebody going to buy right
and that's why what Apple did to
Facebook momentarily was a 10 billion
blow and why we're also seeing when they
when they when they they said you can
cut off the backend you cannot now check
whether Somebody went to the website
that you directed them to and made the
purchase right so that was but they've
figured that out although they're less
they're they're performing well but
they're less specific than they used to
be but it's interesting because in your
book you also wrote there's a doop
Facebook and Google and that also seems
to be a term that's changing
particularly for the reason that you
just mentioned which is that people want
to know whether they they the ads led to
anything and we're seeing Amazon as the
third right now right they're now
entering in a big way and I think again
I don't think the data here is so like
in some ways
the the thing about adtech is that it's
just a new way of doing the same thing
it's always been done like the the thing
that's really changed the most is the
attention but the selling it has always
been done now it's done in a more
sophisticated way it's done with more
data you can check that throughput more
easily although again they came up with
you know use this code was the one of
the first ways to do that throughput
check right like button like button
that's what it was there for yeah
exactly speaking of adtech we're going
to take a quick break and be back right
after this and we're back here with
Chris Hayes he's the author of the
sirens call how attention became the
world's most endangered resource so
Chris like um I heard you had a book
coming out and I was like okay well
Chris is into politics and I write a lot
about tech and talk a lot about tech and
then I was like oh he wrote a tech book
um but there's there must be a political
message contained within this if you're
going to write a book like this what is
that message it's not a message so much
as I think a sort of analysis about
how this pursuit of attention has
restructured American politics as well
and particularly sort of public
discourse um I think there's you know
we're really seeing it in the first few
weeks of the Trump Administration where
Trump Trump's core Insight is that
attention is the most valuable resource
and getting it at all cost is the best
way to dominate politics and he set
himself to doing that in a bunch of
Novel ways I mean even just the first
three weeks of his presidency making
these choices that no other president
I've ever seen made which is I'm just
going to come out to the Resolute desk
and like we'll wing it for 45 minutes
every day and I'll I'll come out and do
like three things a day where i'm
talking to the Press I'm taking
questions we're making news we're making
news some of it's real negative news
some of it's like wildly to my mind like
unthinkably offensive like coming out
while they're still taking the bodies
from the pomac to blame
Dei like basically to blame black people
and women for a plane crash when there's
literally no evidence of that and the
bodies are still in the
river but it got a lot of attention
and I think that like what we are seeing
is an ascendency of a kind of troll
politics um
and and that that Trump insight has now
been built upon by Elon Musk who's the
most the most um distilled essence of
the age like a guy who clearly is a
compulsive inveterate poster clearly
living his life entirely and we have the
evidence of when he's sending his posts
online it's clearly completely changed
his brain chemistry I think it's pretty
clear to see or the way that he relates
to the world and is now implementing
like a posters Madness on on America
yeah well there's no question that both
of them post a lot talk a lot they are
Masters at gaining attention there's no
doubt that attention has changed them
yeah in their own way the push back to
to your musk more than Trump I think you
don't think Trump is I mean Trump has
been living this his whole life no no
that's what I'm saying I think I think
musk has been changed by it more than
Trump you're saying Trump was born this
way I think well no I just think he's
been this way from an early time whereas
musk there's an interesting over the
trajectory of his career it was very
hard to like get must to talk to the
press or be public saving for facing for
a while and then that changed right okay
so here would be the push back to your
argument really not the push back just
the criticism of it um someone who's
criticizing it might just say
um this is a way to sort of redirect uh
the conversation away from the issues
that Trump and musk brought that
attention to right that they brought
attention during the campaign to
immigration Trump in particular uh to
inflation and that resonated with the
American people and they won and so it
seems like you know if we're going to
talk about is this again like going to
be oh it's the platform's fault right
whereas it's not fully Reckoning with
what actually happened well the thing
about what actually happened in politics
is like they're always ma multifactorial
right like just a doubt the nature of
but the issues matter oh yeah the issues
matter but I mean when you're talking
about the aggregated decisions of 150
160 million people right there's like a
whole bunch of threads running through
it um you know in terms of like I don't
think the argument I I wrote the the
book before the book closed before the
2024 election the book's not saying like
Donald Trump won the 2024 elections
specifically and only for this reason
like right I actually think that Biden
was old and inflation was high it gets
you like 85% of the way there the causal
story and I think if you look across
basically every democracy holding
elections in the postco age of inflation
the penalty against incumbency was like
hi range from 5 to 10 points basically
in fact Democrats are on the lower end
of that even nendra Modi who's got like
65% approval ratings got his butt kicked
in an election in this period in India
so like yeah I think the causal story of
2024 a lot of it just gets you there I
think the
um the rebellion in oecd Rich
democracies against increased migration
has also been a consistent theme you see
it everywhere from Sweden to Germany to
the UK to the
US um but I also think it's just 100%
the case that Trump's relationship to
attention is totally distinct of any
president we've seen the way that he's
operated in the office has been totally
distinct the in my view threat he poses
to American Democratic institutions is
actually quite distinct and I think
there is some connection between all
those things
you wrote uh in the book about musk's
purchase of Twitter that musk wanted the
recognition of others but all he got was
uh their attention in purchasing Twitter
and even that will fade soon enough
Chris how did you as a person writing a
book about attention and how powerful it
is not an that this was actually a good
move by musk and would I mean it might
have been before he endorsed Trump but
it was good or bad whatever it was
effective
yeah he's standing in the white house
next to Trump every day I I failed to
anticipate how effective it would be I
was thinking it more in dollar terms
like in at the time I was thinking of it
as a at the time that I was writing this
and again this was written you know
there's a lag in publishing I was
thinking of it as a business transaction
I think this is still true actually
because I think like Trump these
insights are things he backed into
through pathology like so it's like he
we know he bought Twitter essentially as
an impulse purchase because he' become
he didn't like the you know that it
censored The Babylon b or it you know
ding The Babylon B for for uh some
infraction and that he is the world's
richest man and was like I'm going to
buy that he then very clearly in the
beginning bought it because he wanted to
be the main character on Twitter which
he succeeded at and he also succeeded in
imposing a set of sort of content
moderation policies that really did
like light tens of billions of dollars
on fire so like I was thinking of it in
the narrow like
monetization but then what it did was it
created a kind of political power that
then created Financial rewards on the
backside because once you get Donald
Trump elected all of a sudden everyone
wants to be your buddy and your stock
price goes up although I will say this I
think he's also running some real risk
right now oh yeah negative like there is
a reason
that Business Leaders with huge
fortunes don't want to become enormously
polarizing public figures and I think
that Elon
Musk even though this has been very
effective for him so far is about to
learn a little bit more about the
downside risk you know it's funny
because I mean that's something that's
been talked about for a long time about
how elon's Flying Too Close to the sun
yeah he's been doing it for a while yeah
I mean I mean I'm not look I'm not
saying it's the good the good thing he's
done I'm not saying I'm just like
pointing out what's happened which is
that totally I mean the question of is
is should Tesla be valued at 25 times to
Toyota no it's been a story stock the
whole way through yeah it's a story
stock y um but does the story change if
you have hundreds of people showing up
to protest his dealerships around the
country every week and I think that like
that story might change look a little
bit into the data of who what the
politics are of the people who buy
Teslas um and whether uh there's a good
fit between what he's doing now and that
and I think it's sort of interesting um
all right so I don't want to get out of
here without talking about uh the
solutions yeah and I've been listening
to your um your tour and reading of
course reading the book and to me the
most radical idea that you have is that
maybe we want to just have a regulatory
cap on the amount of attention we can
spend on things and it's a very
interesting idea it's also kind of a
Chinese idea like in China they have a
cap a limit on the amount of time that
kids could play video games uh and it's
actually it's it's implemented so is
that what you favor I don't think that's
a crazy idea I
mean I don't want the Chinese model for
a lot of things but you know there's
certain things the Chinese are pretty
good at um I think that we can if we can
regulate you know the argument I make in
the book about like it seems crazy to
regulate attention or have a cap on it
and at one point that seemed true about
Labor in fact there's a you know iconic
Supreme Court case about lochner which
is whether it's constitutional to have a
maximum cap on hours for Bakers and at
first supreme court says no it's
unconstitutional is an interference in
the private right of contract and
substance to Due Process uh to have this
and you know later that's overturned
which is basically what sort of allows
the New Deal state to be created I think
it was really interesting that the tick
talk ban
passed 90 and that the Court's analysis
said said that because it was totally
content independent which I think is
really important right you're Banning
this platform it doesn't all the content
whatever it is right is getting banned
because because these concerns about the
platform does not trigger strict
scrutiny which is the highest level
constitutional scrutiny it it's
interesting to see the court say that
because if you thought about something
like that hard cap right which is
totally content independent that it
would be in a similar constitutional
space well Chris I'm so glad that you
came here to discuss the book I enjoyed
reading it great and we talked about one
solution but there are some others that
I think people should pick up the book
and and check out so thank you so much
for coming on the show thanks man
appreciate it all right everybody thank
you so much for listening and watching
if you're here with us on Spotify or
YouTube the book is called the sirens
call how attention became the world's
most endangered resource definitely go
check it out and we will be back on
Friday to break down the week's news
until then we'll see you next time on
big technology podcast