Noise Wars: The Covert Battle for Your Attention

It’s 7 am in Nicaragua and the single mother next store has commenced playing the rock ballads that serve as her life’s soundtrack. The vocalized yearnings of Bryan Adams and Bonnie Tyler reverberate through the walls. Her neighbor reaches his breaking point after hearing “Total Eclipse of the Heart” for the umpteenth time.

That is the scene described by travel writer Richard Arghiris. When the music finally abates in the afternoon, the blaring soft rock lyrics are replaced by the sonic-boom like bass blasts played by the gangster-rap loving teenagers outside.

As annoying as this situation is, Richard realizes he has few options. Asking his neighbor or the teenagers to turn the music down would do no more than invite their contempt. Calling the police would probably be just as ineffective.

The solution he finally hits upon is to fight fire with fire by blaring his own British-based punk rock music.

Other Forms of Media. No one will dispute how distracting another person’s loud music can be. But other forms of media such as televisions in public spaces increasingly vie for our attention.

While a television playing in the background might seem somewhat innocuous when compared with loud music, its effect can be just as profound.

More and more televisions are cropping up in places like airports, the back seat of taxis, hotel lobbies and the check-out lines at stores.

While some view televisions in public spaces as a welcome distraction, others see it as an unwelcome invasion of their personal space.

Captive Audience-Media. Included in this latter group is my friend Rob Freedman, who refers to this phenomenon as “captive-audience media.” He defines this term to include:

any type of media that doesn’t allow the audience to choose whether or not to consume it, leaving those who don’t want to consume it with only a negative choice: either try to tune it out (which many people are unable to do) or leave, a response that comes with high opportunity costs.

In his recently released book Noise Wars, Rob points out how media companies are increasingly forcing people to consume TV and other digital content outside their homes by turning public settings into “captive-audience platforms.”

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