In a post earlier this month entitled Aren’t Ideas Important to Community?, Joe argued that we can be held back in devising solutions to the problems we face when “the most typical ideas in our culture stand at odds with our collective well-being.” Recognizing and correcting patterns of thought that hinder our efforts to address environmental and social problems is no less important than, for example, the development of more efficient photovoltaic cells.

This week in the New York Times, author Maggie Jackson raised a related issue that deserves consideration. How we work and live today, Jackson contends, is breaking down our ability to concentrate as we are immersed in worlds that divide our attention among many fleeting bits of information.

What are we losing as a result of such distracted living? Is it possible for us to change? And if we persist in these ways, how will we be able to concentrate sufficiently to solve the vast systemic problems we face, such as the climate crisis and peak oil?

Maggie Jackson, who is the author of the new book Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, writes in the Times that researchers in a new field called attention science have found that the average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes. It then takes nearly a half-hour, on average, for the worker to return to the original task. Patterns of interruption and recovery consume roughly 28 percent of the average work day, and, not surprisingly, contribute to stress, according to other studies that Jackson cites.

Others have attributed the problems associated with distraction to the rise of instant messaging and other recent technologies, many of which are associated with the “millennial generation.” However, Jackson brings a broader perspective to this subject and argues convincingly that technologies have long been compressing our perceptions of time and of space, citing such 19th century developments as the railroad and the telegraph. “Our age of speed and overload,” she writes, “has been building for generations.”

Our growing technological achievements bring us the ability to communicate across great distances and access information that previously might have restricted to a small elite. Still, if we allow ourselves to be subjected to countless distractions and treat each with equal urgency, we will not be able to live out our potential. To analyze the situation we face, decide on a course of action, and plan our future, we need to get past ways of working and living that are dominated by distraction.

While Jackson’s work has implications for individuals and businesses, it is too important to be regarded as a self-help topic for easily distracted people or a source of useful ideas for managers dealing with young employees who are always on IM. She does, however, provide tips to reduce distraction, which surely have their place.

Beyond the level of the individual, however, the societal implications are enormous. As she discussed in an appearance on the Diane Rehm Show, ways of living and working that sap our ability to concentrate also harm the democratic process by limiting our capacity to focus on problems and analyze potential solutions. I would add that the prospects for creating or sustaining community are greatly impaired as well when we are overwhelmed by ephemera.

You can see an interview of Maggie Jackson that was recently conducted by Business Week here:

An accompanying Business Week article by Maggie Jackson is available online.

Evan

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