Carolyn Gray
October 27th, 2017
The Division of Attention
Throughout the past few years, technology has reached its highest peak when the best, brightest, and fastest new devices are available to the public. The quicker and more efficient a device is, the more appealing the purchase is to the young minds of today. Within this new era of fast paced living you must not forget to have the ability to erratically multitask, because in this world people are surely going to need it. Young adults have been accustomed to being split almost constantly between different activities no matter what we find ourselves doing. Richard Restak who is a credited author, offers an interesting insight of the effects given to those who find themselves being distracted by advancing technologies. Restak shares his distracting experiences in “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era.”. Whether it be driving and taking an important phone call, watching television and finding yourself flipping through channels out of boredom, or even just feeling restless when trying to focus throughout your day. There has most definitely been a rewiring of the brain and how we function with multiple tasks. Sam Anderson’s “In Defense of Distraction” gives good points as to how young adults enhance their minds with drugs and other stimulants. Anderson believes that the neurostimulators are a way for students to find more focus while trying to multitask. Many believe that in order to live in this world, we should have the ability to switch focus, or even that the modern generation has adapted to always being distracted. But, there has been various factors that come into play when it comes to dealing with focusing in our modern day world. We as a human race, especially young adults have struggled to find focus due to the full blown epidemic of our younger generations being constantly distracted by technology, the need for stimulants and the pressures of needing to respond quickly and accurately.
As we are aware, technology has younger generations distracted almost always and our lives are rapidly increasing with the pace in which we are getting accustomed to live in. Many find it hard to focus because of the non-stop notifications that pop up on phone screens or the temptation to see how many likes their recent Instagram post of their dog got. Technology has been known to cause those who overuse it to become zombies and absent minded. We have come a long way since the evolution of cell phones, desktop computers, and even the “dinosaur”: a pager. What we have not come to terms with is how it is affecting how we live, evolutionize, and communicate together effectively as humans. The increase in technology has given us a new wave of possibilities but with a balance of disadvantages along with it. The standard to which we have been set at is a fast one. Due to the evolution in our technology, we have been expected to move and respond at exactly that, fast. In “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era” by Richard Restak, he states “In our contemporary society speed is the standard applied to everything that we do. Media, especially television, is the most striking example of this acceleration” (Restak, 380). These experiences has forced us to become constantly distracted by technology and heightened our desire to shift our attention to something that will give our mind a break it desires when a hard task is at hand. Many people have thought of humans as resembling a machine due to the amount of time that we spend using them. Every day, ritualistic behaviors commence. When we first wake up, we check social media and all of the emails that have been sent to us. It has become an epidemic of being self reliant on technology and has turned us into distracted, walking, talking machines, “whether you agree that we’re beginning to resemble machines, I’m certain you can readily bring to mind examples of the effect of communication technology on identity and behavior” (Restak 379). Restak also mentioned how, “the machine makes us its captive servant – by its rhythm, by its convenience, by the cost of stopping it or the drawbacks of not using it. As captives we come to resemble its pace, rigidly, and uniform expectations” (379). Although we may be compared to that of a machine, we have a harder time juggling multiple tasks. The ability to multitask has accurately been found to not be too helpful, as stated by Restak, “actually multitasking is not nearly as efficient as most of us have been led to believe. In fact, doing more that one this at once or switching back and forth from one task to another involves time-consuming alterations in brain processing that reduce our effectiveness” (381). While many see that technology can become a trap in which we believe our lives have become more sped up as time has progressed. The world parents are raising their children in are becoming more and more stressful and fast paced. It’s essential to remember the distractions that can be caused from modern day technology. It’s effects are powerful and must be recognized so young adults are able to adapt to the accelerated society we live in.
The ability to multitask in today’s modern day can be time consuming and can cause us to lose our sense of focus and jeopardize relationships and personal growth. Many people choose to spend much of their time with their faces glued to some kind of screen, whether it be a phone, television or computer. But this is all some generations have really been a witness to. We have also forgotten about the importance of being present and communicate with those who are present as well. While being able to get in contact with a loved one from a quick text message, the convenience of it is just that, convenient. Similarly, Restak stated “during all of this I was participating in a “present” comprised of two different time zones along with a “past” drawn from an event that occurred twelve years earlier. Such an experience is no longer unusual. Technology routinely places us in an ambiguous time and place relationships” (380). The importance of focusing in the now is crucial but those who choose to be distracted by the non stop pop ups on their computer or the importance of checking their email every two minutes has forgotten what living in the now is. An example of this is in Restak’s article, “we often feel life going by much, much faster than we wish, as we are carried forward from meeting to meeting, call to call, errand to errand. We have less time to ourselves, and we are expected to improve our performance and output year after year” (378). Young adults have minds that are still moldable
Throughout the years, many young adults have struggled with the difficulty to focus and have often found other routes in how to help themselves, such as taking neuroenhancers. These young adults are needing to “dope their brains into focus” now more than ever, to help with the ongoing distractions of our modern day world. In Restak’s article, he discusses the increase in people who use neuroenhancing drugs to focus more often. These drugs are known to help those who have ADHD and ADD, but people who have not been diagnosed with either of these conditions are using them more than ever. In Sam Anderson’s article “In Defense of Distraction”, he speaks of the issue of people, most commonly students, having access to these drugs that help stimulate the brain into focusing. Anderson says “Although neuroenhancers are currently illegal to use without a prescription, they’re popular among college students (on some campuses, up to 25 percent of student admitted to taking them)” (Anderson, 8). Many believe that using these drugs and enhancers can be a permanent fix to their focusing problems when in fact, the issue can stem from a number of difficulties. But this increase in drug use will continue to change if we refuse to accept the fact that distractions can happen. There are many different routes of stimulants that can help a person dilute their stress and difficulties they may encounter. We are on the rise of mindless numbing to our brains and the escaping of our problems from the use of these neuroenhancers. Anderson agrees and states, “We’ve done so, over the centuries, with substances ranging from tea to tobacco to NoDoz and Benzedrine, and these days the tradition seems to be approaching some kind of zenith with the rise of neuroenhancers, that can produce, in healthy people, superhuman states of attention” (8). This increase of drugs and the need to calm the brain is a scary thought to believe that maybe this might become a part of our “norm.” There have even been comparison of neuroenhancing drugs as having the same stimulation to sleep. Anderson states that, “Drugs are really no different from more traditional “cognitive enhancers” such as laptops, exercise, nutrition, private tutoring, reading and sleep” (8). These enhancers have become more consistent in the lives of many young adults as they find themselves struggling more than ever.
Young adults have become more accustomed to having to live in a fast paced world. It’s important to remember the deficits that our generations are being subject to, due to the accessible technology we have every day. The up and coming generations are being subjected to the societal pressures that the average day for a young adult can be. The use of neuroenhancers are becoming more and more common every time a young mind finds itself having a hard time concentrating, or trying to accomplish a difficult task. Many people believe that it’s good to have the traits of ADHD even though many young adults find themselves struggling to sit still. The new and constantly developing era of technology has swept the young adult generation off of their feet. The developing minds of young adults may be in danger if the availability of technology continues to grow and their drive diminishes.
Works Cited
Anderson, Sam. “In Defense of Distraction” New York News & Politics, edited by New York Media. May 17, 2009, pp 1-13
Restak, Richard. “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era” Emerging: Contemporary Readings for Writers, edited by Barclay Barrios. 3rd ed., Bedford/St. Martin, 2016, pp 372-385
