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Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age
by: Maggie Jackson

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.0973
EAN: 9781591026235
ISBN: 1591026237
Label: Prometheus Books
Manufacturer: Prometheus Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 327
Publication Date: June 04, 2008
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Sales Rank: 6810
Studio: Prometheus Books

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Product Description:
Foreword by Bill McKibben,
author of The End of Nature and The Bill McKibben Reader

We have vast oceans of information at our disposal, yet increasingly we seek knowledge with brief glimpses at online headlines while juggling other tasks. We are networked as never before, but we communicate even with our most intimate friends and family via instant messaging, email, and fleeting face-to-face moments that are rescheduled a dozen times, then punctuated when they do occur with electronic interruptions and a lack of focus.

Despite our wondrous technologies and scientific advances, we are nurturing a culture of diffusion, fragmentation, and detachment. In this new world, something crucial is missing--attention. Attention is the key to recapturing our ability to reconnect, reflect, and relax; the secret to coping with a mobile, multitasking, virtual world that isn't going to slow down or get simpler. Attention can keep us grounded and focused--not diffused and fragmented.

Distracted offers the cutting-edge solutions we need to cure--not just live with--an epidemic of inattention. How did we get to the point where we keep one eye on our Blackberry and one eye on our spouse--in bed? At a time when we can contact millions of people worldwide, why is it hard to schedule a simple family supper? Most importantly, what can we do about it?

Journey with Maggie Jackson as she explores the many ways in which we are eroding our capacity for deep, sustained attention-the building block of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress. In her sweeping quest to unravel the nature of attention and detail its erosion, she introduces us to scientists, cartographers, marketers, educators, wired teens, virtual lovers from the telegraph age, and roboticists building smart machines to comfort and care for us. She takes us from the nineteenth-century roots of our mobile, virtual multitasking ways into a darkening future of snippets, glimpses, skimming, McThinking, and mistrust.

Jackson makes it clear that if we continue down this road of scattered attention spans and widespread societal ADD, we will be in danger of squandering and devaluing the essence of humanity, and our technological age could ultimately slip into cultural decline. But we are just as capable of igniting a renaissance of attention by strengthening our varied powers of focus and perception, the keys to judgment, memory, morality, and happiness. She investigates the science of attention--describing some of the exciting new scientific research that shows how attention skills can be nurtured.

Taking us beyond Blink, Faster, and CrazyBusy, Distraction is unique. It's simultaneously an original exposé of the multifaceted nature of attention, an engaging and often surprising portrait of postmodern life, and a compelling roadmap for cultivating sustained focus and nurturing a more enriched and literate society.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- too disorganized, too long, too many other sources quoted
While I find the topic of the book interesting, Jackson's writing is itself a product of the "age of distraction." It is poorly organized, going from one loosely connected anecedote/story to another without clear direction. She quotes so many other sources that it's difficult to find a sentence that isn't made up of bit quotes from various authors and experts. Many sentences are made up entirely of a quote here from this person followed by a quote there from that person. Jackson also reiterates the same point so many times that it becomes redundant.

Rating:

- Insightful Book
I recently read "Distracted" and found it insightful in its conclusion. It certainly makes a case for the dangers of the many distractions (in particular electronic) we encouonter in our incresingly complex modern world. The potential for impacting our ability to think, focus and make rational decisions maybe seriously being underestimated. I would expect we might see more detailed research that might help provide additional insights and guidance for better adaptation. In particular, Buddhist meditation techniques which focus on the "Present Moment" might play an increasing role in the future. One word of caution---allow yourself a "distraction free environment" if you should decide to read the book, since the words do not flow easily.

Rating:

- Attention span builds cultures, connections and social structure
Attention span builds cultures, connections and social structure - yet it's something lacking in the modern world where multitasking is a given. DISTRACTED: THE EROSION OF ATTENTION AND THE COMING DARK AGE examines the nature of attention, its impact, and its erosion in the modern world, offering a history and analysis which will appeal to college-level collections strong in either health or social issues. Chapters consider awareness, focus, and how they affect the hallmarks of achievement.

Rating:

- Chronicle of Our ADD Society ...
I began this book with high hopes but it just never grabbed me; maybe it was me and I just got distracted. The thesis of the book I think could have been developed convincingly in about ten pages. I doubt there are many who might dispute that we live in an ADD society.

The solutions? Don't necessarily look to Maggie Jackson or her book for answers, though she states up front that it is not her aim to offer a solution.

A fairly effective - if over-written - description of our ADD society.

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