Reclaiming What Matters in The Age of Distraction
What is the value of your attention?
I just wrapped up a week of business travel in Japan. Jet lag was having an impact, and I was also distracted by some personal challenges. Then I found myself checking news updates on my phone much more than usual because of the war in Iran. The social media completely knocked me off balance, and — although I generally think of myself as a rather focused person and reader— I was surprised by how hard a time I had concentrating on just about anything. I’ve mentioned this to some friends, who reported feeling similarly. My experience was unsettling. It was also a wake-up call.
That we’re living in the age of distraction is hardly news, but we all seem to be coming to the same conclusion: it’s getting markedly worse. Now there’s a non-profit trying to do something about it. The Friends of Attention is “a loose, informal network of creative collaborators, colleagues, and actual friends…committed to attention activism.” Among their first official initiatives is a new book that we highly recommend: Attensity!: A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement.