12:00: How to regain our attention span and resist "attention fracking"
1:00: The story of Irish-American brothers who became Rochester music legends
All of a sudden, the notion of the "attention economy" is everywhere. Chris Hayes' new book is called "The Sirens' Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource." Hayes' argues that the most powerful people in the world have learned how to dominate our attention. Social media companies are engaging in "attention fracking," trying to attract every last second of our focus. And speaking of focus, researchers say that the average person can no longer focus on a single task for even a minute at a time anymore. So what can we do about all this? Our guests discuss it:
- Gwen Olton, facilitator, conflict worker, and author
- Alexandria Hoang, director of learning and education at the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence
- Peter Schmidt, program director of the Strother School of Radical Attention
Then in our second hour, the Dady brothers came of age in Rochester's old Tenth Ward, blending their Irish roots with a love for their city and neighborhood. Their music was always distinctively and obviously Irish to its core, but their story is about what it means to hold on to that identity while building a new American story. "Ethnic endurance" is the phrase used by author Christopher Shannon, who brings the Dady brothers to the page in "Singing from the Heart." We discuss it all with Shannon and with John Dady. Our guests:
- John Dady, singer, instrumentalist, and musician with the Dady Brothers
- Christopher Shannon, author of "Singing from the Heart: The Dady Brothers, Irish Music, and Ethnic Endurance in an American City"
*Note: Connections is livestreamed each day on the WXXI News YouTube channel. Watch here.
