Dirt: Disordered Attention
We experience the externalities of the attention economy in little drips, so we tend to describe them with words of mild bemusement like “annoying” or “distracting.” But this is a grave misreading of their nature. In the short term, distractions can keep us from doing the things we want to do. In the longer term, however, they can accumulate and ke... See more
Jenny Odell • How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
The adaptation changes us. We respond to the explosion of signals, the demand it creates, by fragmenting ourselves; we learn to delegate our attention in many directions at once, in controlled allotments. Multitasking, we call it. It’s amazing how quickly we’ve accustomed ourselves to this self-partitioning, to the point where any sustained focus f
... See moreSven Birkerts • The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age
This is a systemic problem. The truth is that you are living in a system that is pouring acid on your attention every day, and then you are being told to blame yourself and to fiddle with your own habits while the world’s attention burns.
Johann Hari • Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again
preserve our mental health and heal our splintered attention.