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Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age Hardcover – June 1, 2008

by Maggie Jackson (Author), Bill McKibben (Foreword)

65 customer reviews

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In this gripping exposé of our cyber-centric, attention-deficient life, journalist Maggie Jackson argues that we are eroding our capacity for deep attention — the building block of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress. The implications for a healthy society are stark.

Despite our wondrous technologies and scientific advances, we are nurturing a culture of diffusion and detachment. With our attention scattered among the beeps and pings of a push-button world, we are less and less able to pause, reflect, and deeply connect.

In her sweeping quest to unravel the nature of attention and detail its losses, Jackson introduces us to scientists, cartographers, marketers, educators, wired teens, and even roboticists. She offers us a compelling wake-up call, an adventure story, and reasons for hope.

As the author shows, neuroscience is just now decoding the workings of attention, with its three pillars of focus, awareness, and judgment, and revealing how these skills can be shaped and taught. This is exciting news for all of us living in an age of overload.

Pull over, hit the pause button, and prepare for an eye-opening journey. More than ever, we cannot afford to let distraction become the marker of our time.

Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this richly detailed and passionately argued book, Jackson (What's Happening to Home?) warns that modern society's inability to focus heralds an impending Dark Age—an era historically characterized by the decline of a civilization amid abundance and technological advancement. Jackson posits that our near-religious allegiance to a constant state of motion and addiction to multitasking are eroding our capacity for deep, sustained, perceptive attention—the building block of intimacy, wisdom and cultural progress and stunting society's ability to comprehend what's relevant and permanent. The author provides a lively historical survey of attention, drawing upon philosophy, the impact of scientific innovations and her own experiences to investigate the possible genetic and psychological roots of distraction. While Jackson cites modern virtual life (the social network Facebook and online interactive game Second Life), her research is largely mired in the previous century, and she draws weak parallels between romance via telegraph and online dating, and supernatural spiritualism and a newfound desire to reconnect. Despite the detours (a cultural history of the fork?), Jackson has produced a well-rounded and well-researched account of the travails facing an ADD society and how to reinvigorate a renaissance of attention. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Maggie Jackson is one of the most original and perceptive journalists writing about the challenges of modern life. In Distracted, she explores our hectic, multi-tasking world. She shows that while digital technology fills our lives with information and entertainment, it is far too often at the expense of human contact and thoughtful reflection. This book will make you slow down and think." -- Senator Amy Klobuchar

"Maggie Jackson's fascinating book on America's collective attention deficit disorder is a wake-up call to all of us to take back our lives, turn off the technology, and focus on paying attention to what makes us human and fulfilled." -- Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business School Professor and author of America the Principled and Confidence.

"This is an important book. I found it to be a harrowing documentation of our modern world's descent into fragmentation, self alienation, and emptiness -- brought on, to a large extent, by communication technologies that distract us, dislocate us, and destroy our inner lives. Others have commented on these issues, but I have never seen them gathered together and documented as completely as Maggie Jackson has done." -- Alan Lightman, author of the bestselling Einstein's Dreams and National Book Award finalist The Diagnosis and MIT professor

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Product details

Hardcover: 327 pages
Publisher: Prometheus Books; 1st edition (June 4, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591026237
ISBN-13: 978-1591026235
Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 1 x 9.3 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 65 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #702,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #668 in Books > Science & Math > Technology > Social Aspects
- #1591 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Social Psychology & Interactions
- #2040 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Social Psychology & Interactions

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Top customer reviews

Excellent description of things I've been noticing for the past ...

ByKarl Vogelon June 25, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Excellent description of things I've been noticing for the past few years. I'd recommend getting this and "The Glass Cage"; together they cover exactly what happens to you when (with the best intentions) something tries to make your life too easy.

0Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Meaningful and Relevant

Bydaisy masonon May 26, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

It doesn't matter how one feels about the ways in which Jackson goes about exploring the nature of our distracted lives; the important thing is that she did it. Early in the book Jackson explains that she didn't set out to write about attention, but rather was " curious as to why so many Americans are deeply dissatisfied with life." It's a big and ornery question, and a very, very important one. When I began to read this book, I noticed distracted, disconnected behaviors around me everywhere I went: in the waiting room of the doctor's office, at weddings I was photographing, in restaurants. It's incredibly disheartening, and Jackson deserves credit, at the very least, for bringing these things to our attention, and for getting the conversation rolling. Hopefully, in time, we will, as a result, see a slowing down of these behaviors that threaten to tear at the fabric of our lives, of our society, and, with any luck at all, a return to some of the slower, deeper habits and ways of being. Maggie Jackson has written a very important book at a crucial time in history.

0Comment 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Pause, Pay Attention, and Focus

Bydbclarkon March 18, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Maggie Jackson wants the world to pause, pay attention, and focus. Despite the title of her book, however, Jackson insists she isn't stating that the world will return to a time when living conditions will parallel those of the medieval dark ages; rather, her fear is that we are becoming increasingly dehumanized and lost by the "merging between man and machine" (16). Our distractions are self-induced by multi-tasking with cell phones, personal computers, the Internet, television - and by immersing ourselves in the distractions that these electronic media afford us - everything from 24/7 email, texting, and Facebook to the temptations of virtual reality. "Consider first that a dark age is not a one-dimensional point in history, a period of flux that often produces great technological and other gains yet ultimately results in a declining civilization and a desertlike spell of collective forgetting" (15). It is this societal "forgetting" that concerns Jackson - and rightly so. In a comprehensively researched book, complete with personal interviews, statistics, and expert opinions, the author powerfully argues that we are living in a world of distractions so pervasive that our capacity to sustain attention and indulge in deep, uninterrupted thought is being seriously hindered. Having personally heard Jackson speak at two educational conferences, I believe her background research is solid, pertinent, and well-organized, resulting in a book that should be read by anyone concerned about the way we perceive and process information in today's modern culture.

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

A book to Preserve Critical thinking in a world of distraction

ByBetty Shottonon February 23, 2012

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Maggie Johnson has done a superb job at researching and capturing the potential consequences of the deluge of instantaneous distractions our world offers today. Quite a departure from earlier times(30 years only) when research required reading and probing and uncovering information. Today many students use amazon reviews to cite authors!
As the author shows, impersonal online relationships can be shallow and lacking the type of trust that comes form in person cues. An increasing number of ADD cases is indicative of a childhood spent in mini bits of information and rapidly fleeting images . She poses the question of how will we as a species develop the ability to think in deep and meaningful ways if we don't learn how to pay attention and focus and think and ponder. This is a very provocative treatise on the future of a society tethered to instant access and skimming across the surface of wisdom.
Betty Shotton Author
Liftoff Leadership

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

Fascinating Book on a Difficult Subject

ByThrillCozbyon August 21, 2013

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The author did a wonderful job in the book in describing why a healthy attention span is so important and what we are losing in the deterioration in our ability to focus. I love her writing style and the imagery she uses in her sentences. She examines the work of a variety of psychologists studying the science of attention and she does a great job in describing why their work is important in helping us understand more about the workings of the brain. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the subject-matter. I bought the digital version and will probably get the paperback and audio versions as well.

0CommentWas this review helpful to you?YesNo

Most recent customer reviews

As a parent of a teen and pre-teen, I am intimately familiar with—and worried about—the increasingly distracted nature of our society.Read more

Published 14 days ago by EQ

This is a perfect book for teachers

Each chapter of Distracted opens with an intriguing anecdote. Maggie Jackson’s lively writing analyzes the crucial topic of focus and attention in a highly readable style.Read more

Published 2 months ago by Amazon Customer

This book is a gem. As someone who teaches ...

This book is a gem.As someone who teaches about Children and Media and works with families about attention to relationships, I find Jackson's work here indispensable.Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age Read more

Published 3 months ago by Mary Rothschild

“Distracted” is a beautifully written, well-researched book about how today’s wired world ...

“Distracted” is a beautifully written, well-researched book about how today’s wired world is impacting our ability to concentrate, connect with others, and even relax.Read more

Published 3 months ago by Amazon Customer

Everyone should read this book!
So needed in these crazy times when we are multi tasking too much.

Published 3 months ago by Anne

Great topic but poorly written. I actually returned this book because I was so disappointed.

Published 7 months ago by kerry

Challenging story about how we are eroding our attention on a daily basis. Mindfulness is the answer!

Published 11 months ago by Diane Tilstra

Don't waste your time on it

This book didn't do anything for me. The author could have shortened it to 20 pages, said all the same things, and saved herself and the readers a lot of time.Read more

Published 1 year ago by Paul

Published 1 year ago by Katie

This book almost made me dislike reading. There were some typos. The author is way to wordy. I get what she was trying to say but it could have been said in less pages.Read more

Published on March 20, 2015 by Amazon Customer

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