Why you cannot keep attention and why it is important

A long time ago now, I read “The Shallows” . A very sobering book about how computers, the internet and social media are messing up your attention span. Once you read that, you will never be the same.

Stolen focus

Hence “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention. The book begins with a personal journey trying to detox from phones and social media. His detox journey reads a bit like Bill Bryson’s “The End of Absence”.

Our attention span is diminishing

It is followed by an analysis of why we are losing our attention span, with a particular focus on the younger generations. You should be very worried, and you should get angry. We live in an economic machine that requires greater speed to keep going, which inevitably degrades our attention over time. Lack of attention is causing crises in our whole society. The world is complex and requires steady focus to be understood; it needs to be thought about and comprehended slowly.

• On average, a student would switch tasks once every sixty-five seconds.
• Our collective ability to pay attention is rapidly shrinking.
• Lack of attention is a social epidemic (like obesity)
• The fastest-rising cause of death in the world is distracted driving.