Carolyn Gray
October 13th, 2017
The Division of Attention
Are you tempted right now to check and email, make a phone call or just stick your face into your cellphone? That’s perfectly fine because I’m guessing you’re not the only one in the world who feels a bit of distraction right now. 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 faster a device is, the more appealing the purchase. Within this new era of fast paced living you mustn’t forget to have the ability to erratically multitask like a crazy person as a tool to fit in your back pocket, because in this world you are surely going to need it. We have been accustomed to being split almost constantly between different activities no matter what we find ourselves doing. 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 indefinitely been a rewiring ofr the brain and how we deal with tasks. Many believe that it’s just a touch of ADHD or in need of a dose of a “chill pill”. 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 have struggled to find focus and the ability to multitask due to the full blown epidemic of our 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 phone, 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). This acceleration has allowed us to become clouded over and able to succumb to the numbness that meaningless scrolling can provide for our brains. These experiences has forced us to become so constantly distracted by technology and heightened our desire to shift our attention to something that will give our mind a the little break it desires’s always begging to get when a hard task is at hand. The availability of the thoughtless media that we allow ourselves to become a part of has given us the ability to be distracted from what is around us. 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” (379). The behavior that we have exhibited over the time that technology has changed who we are and what the future holds for those who spend their time distracted by machines like phones, televisions and other sources of media. 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
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. The ability for us to find a screen quickly is undeniably worrisome as many often spend their time and energy focusing on their screens and not the people they are able to communicate with, face to face. 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). As the world progresses we must learn to live in the present and be in the present as time is limited.
Throughout the years, many have struggled with the difficulty to focus and have often found other ways in treating it. People 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 something as innocent as 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).
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-qCu77-00qqnkQZg3jcidlEWK96rA8lMIoDig1tnErg/edit
