As a person who constantly rails against the levels of multitasking most of us have fallen victim to, I was intrigued by a new book: Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age by Maggie Jackson.
I have just had the opportunity to quickly skim it, and think it is an important book to read. It seems well researched, presenting data on the impact of multitasking and our inability to focus. It projects a dire future—I’m not sure I quite buy into that—but will re-read.
Technology has provided us wonderful means of staying in touch. It provides us access to oceans of information. We all have wonderful tools.
However, in leveraging these tools, it seems we may have lost sight of what they are supposed to help us do. They should help us get more done—-yet because of our inability to focus, our willingness to succumb constantly to interruptions, we seem to get less done. They are to help us make better decisions, yet it seems that we have less wisdom or knowledge.
In our fast moving, bullet point focused worlds, it will be hard to sit down and read this book, but it is worth the time—-and the reflection.
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