Losing Focus
Impressive is not strong enough. Vast, in-depth, challenging, thorough, detailed and triumphant may describe it better. Maggie Jackson's Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age is a tightly written treatise on the state of American culture in the Technological Age. Where has our attention 
gone? According to Ms. Jackson, it has seeped into blue split-screen living with a dash of nomadic transience. We're skimming the surface of our lives like a dragon fly on a pond with dripless, crustless, tasteless food, shattered conversation, and information overload. Intensity has escaped us. We lead a vacuum-packed existence.
The book claims we are quickly losing the capability of deep thinking. It may sound radical, but consider how much we read (on the Web) and how little we retain. Fragmented scraps of data float in our brains with little cohesion. We task-switch without concentration, making more errors than if we were to refrain from juggling.
Thinking the book might focus solely on the Internet itself, I was pleasantly surprised to see the breadth of Ms. Jackson's treatment of our collective attention deficit disorder. Quoting Nietzsche, William James and Derrida, Ms. Jackson delves into the treasure trove of philosophy to explain how we've gotten into the state we're in. Satisfyingly academic, her book requires attention and commitment to slog through the text without the culturally threatening distraction she bemoans.
If you're looking for a guide on modern living, you won't find it here. Distracted is a lovely compilation of ideas sewn seamlessly together by anecdotes and academia. It made me miss the penetrating hum of the overhead lights in my cubicle at Smith College so many years ago. It was the only distraction we had. My daughter's generation is challenged by the ring-tone culture that leapfrogs our focus from one thing to the other without thought.
Thankfully, Ms. Jackson has offered us an eye-opening discourse, torch in hand, illuminating the darkening walls as we edge closer to the light.
