The Great Fracturing of American Attention
Dr. James Williams—who works on the philosophy and ethics of technology at Oxford University—he told me: “If we want to do what matters in any domain—any context in life—we have to be able to give attention to the right things…. If we can’t do that, it’s really hard to do anything.”
Johann Hari • Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again
But their business model can only succeed if they take steps to dominate the attention spans of the wider society.
Johann Hari • Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again
What is attention for? Attention is taken up as a capacity that is being diminished by our technological environment with the emphasis falling on digitally induced states of distraction. But what are we distracted from? If our attention were more robust or better ordered, to what would we give it? Pascal had an answer, and Weil did, too, it seems t... See more
theconvivialsociety.substack.com • Attending to the World
So when you pay attention to something you don’t especially value, it’s not an exaggeration to say that you’re paying with your life. Seen this way, “distraction” needn’t refer only to momentary lapses in focus, as when you’re distracted from performing your work duties by the ping of an incoming text message, or a compellingly terrible news story.... See more