Honestly, I didn’t think I’d like this book as much as I did. The beginning is an interesting but lengthy history of the advertising industry, which started consciously in the mid 1800’s.

I never knew that “snake oil” as a description of false advertising literally came from a patent medicine made of boiled snake skins, snake oil. That is intriguing and gross.

The details about the methods used by the tobacco industry that changed the attention merchant industry are worth the read, particularly when companies realized that collecting the attention of women would lead to huge increases in sales.

Fun fact: The Amos and Andy radio hour was the first appointment entertainment in the home.

I found myself adding more and more notes about this book as the narrative marched to contemporary time: the third screen (computer), the importance of being famous, the internet, and the fourth screen. I think living through these eras made the history really hit home.

I like Wu’s take on the push and pull between the attention merchants and the public. The attention merchants go unchecked for a decade or more growing in their methods and invasion into our lives, and then the public pushes back for a few years. We are currently beginning a time of pushback, but it might not last. This pushback began with the trend to cut the cord and pay for ad-less entertainment services like Netflix, but it has grown to be couched under the auspices of the right to privacy vs. the unchecked data collection used to manipulate our attention on a near individual basis: behavior centered ads. The cord cutting pushback seemed to catch on much faster than the constant violation of people’s privacy.

As a reader, if this book doesn’t catch your interest and you consider putting it down, at the very least, read the epilogue. It is probably the most important chapter in the book because it discusses the future and consequences of unchecked attention harvesting: What are the costs to a majority of the population living the bulk of their lives not in concentration and focus but in a state of fragmentary awareness?