longer a communal space but a place of social collections. People come together but do not speak to each other. Each is tethered to a mobile device and to the people and places to which that device serves as a portal.” Ironically, our constant connection in some respect makes us more disconnected, even when surrounded by other humans, potentially other lonely humans.
The sensationalism that comes from news exposes us to the suffering of others on a daily, if not hourly, basis. This makes the act of viewing suffering mundane, creating potential compassion fatigue. The echo chambers that are created within social media impact not only how we view important issues as voters and citizens, but also how we engage and treat one another. We also face an onslaught of daily decisions via technology. We have become overwhelmed with choice, whether it is in the dairy aisle or on Tinder. How do we navigate all these options without becoming incapacitated? Given the ability of our smartphones to lure us into a habit of scrolling, how do we develop a well‐balanced diet of social media without it limiting other aspects of our lives? What about tribalism, sensationalism, FOMO, outrage, confirmation bias, and a host of other factors that confront us every day in this information age? We seem aware, yet uninformed and polarized. Outraged, yet apathetic. When I think of all of the push and pull of our attention that comes from this information and perhaps most importantly, the psychological impacts of all of it, the word that always comes front of mind is numb.
The sports broadcaster Beano Cook once said, “Life in the 1960s was far better, with three notable exceptions: Medicine, civil rights, and air conditioning.” Although certainly clever with some truth to it, life today has many benefits beyond the three he mentioned. This age of information brings with it numerous possibilities. We have the ability to communicate with people from every corner of the globe who bring different worldviews and perspectives to important topics as well as our own life. Medical breakthroughs can be achieved through online collaboration and dissemination to a broad group of scientists. Look no further than the COVID‐19 pandemic to see the benefit of large‐scale international medical collaborations that could only be advanced through this information age. We have the ability to be better‐informed consumers, voters, worshippers, and professionals through our access to information. It is a matter of finding the right balance of accessing information that makes our lives better, engaging enough of the news to be well‐informed, and connecting with social media in both a positive and genuine way. The solution to meeting all of our short‐ and long‐term goals is not eliminating all of our technology. Rather, it is finding the right balance with information and technology in our personal and professional lives. Each of us has to decide if this information age really and truly makes our lives better. Perhaps there are tweaks you can make in your relationship with social media, cable news, or dating apps. You might have initially engaged social media or dating apps thinking they would be useful to become more connected. Has that goal been achieved? Have you been realizing that lately you have become too connected? I hope the insight from this book, and the reflective process that goes along with it, will help you answer those questions and find the right balance. I hope that it is a worthwhile journey.
CHAPTER 2 Can I Have Your Attention Please?
Imagine that you are driving a car down the road. You are effortlessly moving down your path, maneuvering the steering wheel through the twists and turns as well as hitting the accelerator and brake when necessary. You have driven on this road dozens of times so you know each curve and even a few potholes. As you are driving, your attention shifts from the road to an important meeting that is happening at work on Monday morning. As you continue your trip, you think about the work that needs to be done in advance of that meeting. By the end of the 20‐minute drive, you have mapped out how you would like the Monday meeting to flow and even considered how you would like to structure the presentation.
Now imagine that you are driving down the same road and you have a passenger sitting next to you. She is a good friend who is sharing the emotional details of her recent breakup. You are performing all of the same tasks in driving the car as outlined above but also listening and responding to your friend's story. You are constantly shifting focus between the road and your friend, sometimes focusing on the road a bit more when there is a turn and sometimes concentrating on your friend when she gets more emotional or asks you a question. Your mind briefly wanders to the Monday meeting while she is talking, but between the road and your friend, there is little opportunity to focus on the flow of the upcoming presentation or potential outcomes. As you drive, you are responding to your friend with an occasional “yes” or “no” or even a head nod while your eyes are focused on the road. By the end of the drive, you have a clear sense of what happened in your friend's breakup (or at least her side of the story), but nothing beyond a reminder that the Monday presentation needs some work.
Just for fun, let's add one more scenario. It is now pouring rain while you are driving: Same road, same friend, same breakup. You are struggling to see the road while steering and carefully managing the accelerator. Given the severity of the road conditions, you prioritize your attention towards driving. You are using the brake far more often as the rainstorm impedes the view of the road ahead of you. Very little of your attention is devoted to your friend's breakup story; you only manage to perceive when she gets more emotional. You are mindful enough to offer a few grunts of agreement while she talks, but in reality if you had to recount the story of her breakup to others, you would not perform well. Between the white‐knuckle driving and your friend's breakup story, you never once thought of your presentation at the Monday meeting.
All of these different scenarios highlight the nature of attention. In the first example, you were familiar with the road and the conditions were ideal for driving. You did not have to concentrate too heavily on the path ahead so you had attention to devote to the meeting on Monday. You were able to develop some concrete plans for the presentation in your mind that will be useful when you return to your desk. In the second scenario, you had attention to devote to your friend's breakup story because the drive was not overly taxing. However, between the drive and your friend, you had little attention to devote to the planning of the Monday presentation. In this scenario, you were compelled to allocate whatever attention you had left over from driving to your friend. Because the road was clear, you could devote attention to your friend's breakup story. However, in the third scenario, when the conditions of the road became dangerous with the storm, you had to prioritize your attention towards driving and limit how much attention you could devote to your friend with almost none dedicated to your Monday presentation.
What Is Attention?
Attention is one of those terms that we throw around often. We ask for others' attention. It is asked of us and, in some cases, it is taken away from us through a variety of means. If you ask 100 people the meaning of the word “attention,” you are likely to get dozens of different answers. You would hear words like “concentration” and “focus” but also words that associate attention with the senses such as seeing, hearing, and feeling. Even among psychologists there are a number of different perspectives regarding the actual meaning. William James, in Principles of Psychology wrote, “Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought… . It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state.”
At a more basic level, attention is how we select information in the environment around us. Many visualize attention like a highlighter on the page, where you are focusing mental energy on particular words. Jason McCarley, a cognitive psychologist at Oregon State University, describes attention as “the thread through all of our awareness.” As he puts it, if we do not attend to something, we don't perceive it. Thinking back to the driving example, if we are focused intently on driving the car in a heavy rainstorm, we may be able to perceive that our friend is talking but not really have any comprehension of the details of her story. (We might even ask her
