Distracted

by Maggie Jackson, Christine Carroll (Reader)

Do you text during family dinners or read e-mails during meetings? Does your spouse learn about your day from Facebook? Do you get news about the world by scanning online headlines while also doing something else? Welcome to the land of distraction. Despite our wondrous technologies and scientific advances, we are nurturing a culture of diffusion, fragmentation, and detachment. Our attention is scattered among the beeps and pings of a push-button world. We are less and less able to pause, reflect, and deeply connect. In Distracted , journalist Maggie Jackson ponders our increasingly cyber-centric world and fears we're entering a dark age of interruption that will render us unable to think critically, work creatively, or cultivate meaningful relationships. Jackson warns of what can happen when we lose our ability to sustain focus and erode our capacity for deep attention - the building blocks of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress. The implications for a healthy society are stark. Societal ADD will adversely affect parenting, marriages, personal safety, education, and even democracy. And yet we can recover our powers of focus through a renaissance of attention. Neuroscience is just now decoding the workings of attention, with its three pillars of focus, awareness, and judgment, and revealing how these skills can be shaped and taught. In her sweeping quest to unravel the nature of attention and detail its losses, Jackson offers us a compelling wake-up call, an adventure story, and reasons for hope. Put down your smart phone and prepare for an eye-opening journey. We can and must learn to focus attention in this Twitter culture.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Psychology, Mental Health

MP3 CD

Published August 23, 2016

Reviews

[SundayAtDusk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oddly, I found it incredibly hard not to be easily distracted by anything and everything while reading this book! I'm not sure why, either. The topic is highly interesting to me, and I'm far from being a multi-tasking type person who can do other things while reading. Moreover, I did not grow up with the internet, so have no problem focusing and staying focused on what I'm reading. I even had a paper copy of the book, which I prefer much more than a Kindle copy.

Yet, by the time I got to the final chapter, all I could think of was I wanted to do something creative, like write a story, or draw cherry blossoms with my new pen set, or even read a novel. Anything but keep reading how people multi-task these days, how they can't think critically, how they can't break their screen addictions, etc. Maybe I just find the topic too depressing. Maybe I think the only way to even begin to tackle the distraction problem is to get rid of cell phones; or make them so they can do nothing but place or receive telephone calls; and see them as something children do not need to possess.

(Note: I received an ARC of this book from Amazon Vine.)

[Beth Bonness · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although this book was originally written in 2018, the timelines of Maggie's research and message are as relevant today (if not more) than back then.

Understanding what attention is and how much more research is needed helped tremendously in reflecting for myself -- where I might let my attention get hijacked.

THREE TYPES OF ATTENTION:
1) Awareness - wakefulness
2) Orienting - like the flashlight of the mind
3) Executive - symphony conductor of our attention - allows us to make choices and steer our attention

When I find myself not fully present, my flashlight waves all over the place and the conductor must be on a coffee break.

Maggie uses delightful stories along her travels including taking an Attention Network Test only to find herself in the average range. Although there's hope - we're on the edge of understanding what attention is and Maggie shares the benefits and importance of taking breaks from our digital devices that hijack our attention.

As you read and learn, we are habituating digital distractions in our daily routines. Our ability as a species to stay focused for long periods of time for reflection is being eroded. Not there's hope - research shows as people take breaks from their devices, their in-person relationships begin to flourish in a way that constantly checking our phones (even if we're in a conversation and want to research a topic of that conversation) don't allow.

Thank you for yet again Maggie for researching something we take for granted and sharing your research findings.

[Abdul Basit · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is too well written for the attention deficient people it was supposed to be for. It is at a higher level for the people that could benefit from it.

Many time while reading it, I felt asking Maggie Jackson where she us going with it. I still felt like asking her. I couldn't see any discussion about attention except in the first the last chapters. Maybe I need to intellectually grow up a bit more to really get the whole message.

I also couldn't understand why would she describe in so much detail the appearances of the people she interviewed. Like how is it relevant with everything else.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only read the introduction.

Argument that over-reliance on tech tools heralds an oncoming dark age (limiting/ regression of capacity for critical analysis) wasn’t what I was looking for.

Side argument that shorter attention spans hinders emotion regulation, which requires ‘effortful control’ was really interesting.

I’m not counting not finishing the book as a case of tl;dr short attention span though.

[Rosemary · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got what I was looking for out of the earlier chapters of this book (reading about attention spans and what technology is doing to them), and then I got lost in the sauce during the middle section and in the end decided my time with the book was complete. Interesting, but at a certain point the repetitive format and the wandering tired me out. Maybe I'm the problem!

[John Hitchcock · Rating 5 out of 5]

10 years after the first edition, I’m struck by how this book reads like it is speaking of today. If anything, we’ve gone deeper into the. “Shallows.” Jackson was on to something very big. Huge kudos to her - and bad on us for not hearing her warning.

[Andréa]

Note: I accessed a digital review copy through Edelweiss.