
The Sirens' Call
How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource
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Narrated by:
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Chris Hayes
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By:
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Chris Hayes
About this listen
An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller
From the New York Times bestselling author and MSNBC and podcast host, a powerful wide-angle reckoning with how the assault from attention capitalism on our minds and our hearts has reordered our politics and the very fabric of our society
“An ambitious analysis of how the trivial amusements offered by online life have degraded not only our selves but also our politics.”—New York Times
“Brilliant book… Reading it has made me change the way I work and think.”—Rachel Maddow
We all feel it—the distraction, the loss of focus, the addictive focus on the wrong things for too long. We bump into the zombies on their phones in the street, and sometimes they’re us. We stare in pity at the four people at the table in the restaurant, all on their phones, and then we feel the buzz in our pocket. Something has changed utterly: for most of human history, the boundary between public and private has been clear, at least in theory. Now, as Chris Hayes writes, “With the help of a few tech firms, we basically tore it down in about a decade.” Hayes argues that we are in the midst of an epoch-defining transition whose only parallel is what happened to labor in the nineteenth century: attention has become a commodified resource extracted from us, and from which we are increasingly alienated. The Sirens’ Call is the big-picture vision we urgently need to offer clarity and guidance.
Because there is a breaking point. Sirens are designed to compel us, and now they are going off in our bedrooms and kitchens at all hours of the day and night, doing the bidding of vast empires, the most valuable companies in history, built on harvesting human attention. As Hayes writes, “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.” The Sirens’ Call is the book that snaps everything into a single holistic framework so that we can wrest back control of our lives, our politics, and our future.
©2025 Chris Hayes (P)2025 Penguin Audio
Interview: Chris Hayes is sounding the alarm about the key resource of our age: attention
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Critic reviews
“Chris Hayes’s spirited new book, The Sirens’ Call, takes a strong stand against the temptations of social media and information overload, on the grounds that the human attention span is ill equipped to absorb and act on such a constant stream of data. Among other things, the book—already a best seller, and one of our recommended titles this week—reveals that Hayes has abandoned scrolling for the old-fashioned pleasure of reading the newspaper in print each day, which sounds like a pretty good prescription to this fan of old media.”—Gregory Cowles, The New York Times
“The Sirens’ Call is a provocative book, readable and well-argued and alarming. Hayes thinks that ‘even the most panicked critics’ of tech haven’t yet reckoned with the full breadth of its disruption, with the vast transformation it has wrought on both our public and inner lives. The book takes big swings—at political and economic regimes—but it’s also quite intimate. Reading it, I thought a lot about my son . . . I don’t want my son’s consciousness in the custody of Google and Meta and ByteDance and Apple; I want it to belong to him.”—The Washingtonian
“Chris Hayes persuasively and heartrendingly argues . . . it has become almost impossible to ‘agree’ to attend to anything in the true, voluntary sense of that word . . . This book is Hayes’s attempt at sounding the alarm, one befitting a great fire, to remind us what’s at stake . . . His writing comes alive with an emotional truth . . . with passion and erudition.”—The Washington Post
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One winter morning, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at a hospital in Seoul. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save the animal—or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step.
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Powerful, Tough Listen
- By ncnickle on 01-26-25
By: Han Kang, and others
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Abundance
- By: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Narrated by: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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To trace the history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, America has a national housing crisis. After years of limiting immigration, we don’t have enough workers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean-energy infrastructure we need. Ambitious public projects are finished late and over budget—if they are ever finished at all.
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Advice to the Democratic Party from Klein & Thompson
- By Betsy Fowler on 03-31-25
By: Ezra Klein, and others
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Where Tyranny Begins
- The Justice Department, the FBI, and the War on Democracy
- By: David Rohde
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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In Where Tyranny Begins, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Rohde investigates the strategies Trump systematically used to turn the country's two most powerful law-enforcement agencies into his personal political weapons. Rohde also reveals how, during the Biden years, Justice Department non-partisan 1970s norms that Attorney General Merrick Garland reinforced inadvertently helped Trump, and could fail to deliver a trial and legal accountability by Election Day 2024.
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Review of why we fired trump
- By ludlow on 09-24-24
By: David Rohde
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Drift
- The Unmooring of American Military Power
- By: Rachel Maddow
- Narrated by: Rachel Maddow
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. To understand how we've arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today's war in Afghanistan.
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Half the National Debt?
- By Dolf Beil on 04-07-12
By: Rachel Maddow
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Autocracy, Inc.
- The Dictators Who Want to Run the World
- By: Anne Applebaum
- Narrated by: Anne Applebaum
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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We think we know what an autocratic state looks like: There is an all-powerful leader at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned not by one dictator, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, surveillance technologies, and professional propagandists, all of which operate across multiple regimes, from China to Russia to Iran.
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A Triumphant Work -Puts It All Together With Laser Clarity
- By Sjhoffman on 09-19-24
By: Anne Applebaum
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Mindmasters (Anna Caputo version)
- The Data-Driven Science of Predicting and Changing Human Behavior
- By: Sandra Matz
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Columbia Business School professor Sandra Matz reveals in fascinating detail how big data offers insights into the most intimate aspects of our psyches and how these insights empower an external influence over the choices we make. This can be creepy, manipulative, and downright harmful, with scandals like that of British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica being merely the tip of the iceberg.
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An Important book!! Very well written!! Empowering!
- By onili on 02-03-25
By: Sandra Matz
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The Longest Con
- How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism
- By: Joe Conason
- Narrated by: Steve Marvel
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The Longest Con tells the fascinating story of the partisan con artists who have corrupted conservative politics in our time, creating a toxic phenomenon that culminated in the election of Donald Trump, a bumptious fraud whose checkered career and tawdry retinue, including his presidential cabinet, have featured almost every variety of scam. But long before he appeared, Trump's path to power was blazed by the motley horde of swindlers and quacks who preceded him.
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America Needs to Know the Truth and Dangers of Trump
- By Tiberius on 12-01-24
By: Joe Conason
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Let's Call Her Barbie
- By: Renée Rosen
- Narrated by: Abigail Reno
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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When Ruth Handler walks into the boardroom of the toy company she co-founded and pitches her idea for a doll unlike any other, she knows what she’s setting in motion. It might just take the world a moment to catch up. In 1956, the only dolls on the market for little girls let them pretend to be mothers. Ruth’s vision for a doll shaped like a grown woman and outfitted in an enviable wardrobe will let them dream they can be anything.
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Story based on real characters
- By Lindsey Berman on 04-17-25
By: Renée Rosen
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Erasing History
- By: Jason Stanley
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Combining historical research with an in-depth analysis of our modern political landscape, Erasing History issues a dire warning for America and the world: the worst fascist movements of humanity’s past began in schools; the same place so many of today’s right-wing political parties have trained their most vicious attacks. Yale professor Jason Stanley exposes the true danger of the right’s tactics and traces their inspirations and funding back to some of the most dangerous ideas of human history.
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The bias attitude of the author
- By Elizabeth ohanna on 09-30-24
By: Jason Stanley
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Sick Society
- Reimagining How We Live Well Together
- By: Andy Knox
- Narrated by: Simon Bubb
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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As we recover through the reality of a global pandemic, we face into a severe cost of living crisis. We live in a time of great uncertainty. More people are being pushed into poverty. The gap between the richest and poorest is growing wider. We are, perhaps, more divided than we have ever been. Our public services are overwhelmed. Citizens are fed up.Our society is sick. What can we do? We must allow ourselves to feel the pain of our reality, be outraged, challenge the inevitability of the status quo and create moral alternative economies of a reimagined future.
By: Andy Knox
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Old Soul
- By: Susan Barker
- Narrated by: George Blagden, Jill Winternitz, Olivia Vinall
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In Osaka, two strangers, Jake and Mariko, miss a flight, and over dinner, discover they've both brutally lost loved ones whose paths crossed with the same beguiling woman no one has seen since. Following traces this mysterious person left behind, Jake travels from country to country gathering chilling testimonies from others who encountered her across the decades—a trail of shattered souls that eventually leads him to Theo, a dying sculptor in rural New Mexico, who knows the woman better than anyone—and might just hold the key to who, or what, she is.
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Stunning
- By Tim Reads Things on 02-06-25
By: Susan Barker
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Attack from Within
- How Disinformation Is Sabotaging America
- By: Barbara McQuade
- Narrated by: Barbara McQuade
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on our Capitol in 2020 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows us how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving our country's hard-won democracy.
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Trump bashing
- By joseph clayson on 03-09-24
By: Barbara McQuade
What listeners say about The Sirens' Call
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-06-25
Social Media Attention: Who Knew
Excellent book on how social medial attention has changed our lives, our politics & how we interact with each other. Extremely thought provoking. Loved it!!!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Nancy
- 02-02-25
Thoughtful and captivating
I didn’t want this to end. Thank you Chris, you should create, write and read more.
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3 people found this helpful
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- william t. hanson
- 02-16-25
The whole idea of my "Attention. "
It seems to take quite a while to get to the guts of the story. But by and large an outstanding book. Thanks.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-20-25
Will Hold Your Attention
Mr. Hayes provides critical historical context to help us better grasp the current moment, the chronic, incessant inner turmoil of what we WANT to pay attention to and what we ACTUALLY give our attention. He reminds us of our own attention agency against seemingly insurmountable capitalist pressures; we have freedom of will and we can be better stewards of our own minds. Ultimately, thankfully, he leaves us with hope, and not the nostalgic kind, that we ARE indeed experiencing a hinge moment in attention capitalism, a point of diminishing return in terms our collective attention investment in technology and in particular, social media. Bravo, Mr. Hayes! Your book certainly held my attention and I am all the better for it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Texas Mama
- 02-16-25
Smarter than I expected
I appreciated Hayes’ efforts to ground his analysis of our attentional problems in philosophy and social theory. His “solution” section might have drawn on psychological and sociological thought in much the same way but instead was decidedly skimpy: let’s listen to vinyl and switch from social media to group chats.
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- Curtis Longnecker
- 03-13-25
Attention is valuable
Great book and definitely worth a listen. If you enjoyed Mr. Hayes previous two book you will definitely enjoy this
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- JR
- 04-06-25
Stating the obvious truth
There is much validation in this well documented collection of truth about how our mailable minds have been so dreadfully manipulated by today’s technology.
It confirms our confusion about what seems to be different in the way today’s society adapts to information and how our social skills have changed and how grabbing our attention is the most precious commodity of today’s new world. It was an eye opener told by a wonderful orator.
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- Anonymous User
- 04-20-25
Timely + important in the age of attention.
This book will probably validate a lot of things that you already feel are true, while giving you more well, researched and evidence based background information about how we have entered the age of the attention economy.
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- Therese Dwyer
- 04-15-25
Siren's Call was wonderful
I loved it. Gave me a new perspective on attention and how it has been monetized
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- john
- 02-19-25
Poignant and Deeply Relatable
This book does truly an incredible job of articulating the strangeness of this current historical moment and and contains compelling takes on its damages and a way forward. 12/10, would recommend.
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