Summary Of Sam Anderson's In Defense Of Distraction

Alina Tugend is a writer and columnist for the Business section of the New York Times. She has also had articles featured in the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, and Family Circle. In two-thousand and eight, Tugend published an article in the New York Times titled, “Multitasking Can Make You Lose... Um...Focus.” In this article, Tugend spends time talking about different types of research and their impact on today’s society to be able to multitask, when instead they should be focusing on one single task at a time.

Whether or not society recognizes it, there is a gravitational pull amongst all, towards technology. Within that pull, lies the loss of an ability to focus and to connect with one another. Close friendships fade, romantic relationships dissolve, and family dynamics dim. At the root of the heartaches, lies technology—whether it be cellphones, laptops, television, or tablets. In Daniel Goleman’s book, Focus, he examines the the correlation and causation of technology and the effects it has on the human brain. Goleman spends plenty of time discussing the lack of human connection being resulted in the era of technology and how it effects individuals. As one of those individuals, Goleman’s writing reflected my own life with technology.

In the article “Addicted to Distraction” by Tony Schwartz, he argues that the internet has a relentless pull on humans. He goes into detail on how the internet interrupts all daily activity. Schwartz also explains how he is also a victim to the internet and how he is overcoming the overuse of it. The internet does have a grasp on the attention of humans. People willingly give up their primary focus and activities just to check their devices. People are imprisoned to the internet and don’t even realize that it is leading to a deterioration of their learning ability.

Tony Schwartz wrote an article called “ Addicted to Distraction” on November 28, 2016 to inform the readers about how the internet is a distraction and how distractions can affect your life. One of the main points in this article is that people use the internet for non important things. Another point is stated in paragraph 14, “ The problem is that we humans have a very limited reservoir of will and discipline.” Through out the article, Shwartz did not only write the article to only talk about his own addiction, he also wrote it to where the readers can relate to it and to compare it to their very own distraction.

Lauren Shinozuka wrote “The Dangers of Digital Distractedness” for a class assignment. She is a college student that lives in the world of technology and internet. Her idea to address how dependent the world has become on technology without even realizing it. Lead her to her own evaluation of her life and how technology has changed how she deals and interacts with people.

On the other hand, Harvard experimental cognitive psychologist Dr. Pinker in his essay “Mind Over Mass Media” addresses the same issue, technology as a deterrent to concentration, but has a very different outlook. Although Dr. Pinker acknowledges that technology can be a distraction, he chooses to provide logical (albeit condescending) strategies to overcome the distractions rather than going into theatrics. Dr. Pinker states, “The solution is not to bemoan technology but to develop strategies of self-control, as we do with every other temptation in life. Turn off email or twitter when you work, put away your Blackberry at dinner time, ask your spouse to call you to bed at a designated hour” (Pinker par. 9). Essentially, Pinker asserts that if one takes simple preventative measures, there is no reason to believe technological distractions will hinder the mind.

In the article “The Cost of Paying Attention”, Matthew Crawford, the editor for The New York Times, argues that paying attention is a very valuable resource. Crawford argues that a person only has so much of it. He states that things like advertisements can easily distract people from what they need to focus on. He stresses the importance of silence because silence is hard to come by and it’s what make it possible to think. Since it’s much harder to pay attention with all the distraction being around, it’s better to prioritize one’s brain so distraction won’t happen… (Crawford)

They argue that the way they’re thinking is changing, how their “concentration… starts to drift after two or three pages” and that modern technology doesn’t push them to commit to a certain informational source long enough because “research… can now be done in minutes” (Source 4). The internet seems to have all the answers, which generally shortens the time needed to spend on an activity thus limits the room to think critically. And in this case, not only does it ruin our contemplation but also our concentration and patience because we expect the internet to feed us information. However, this is not all true because the “digital world lowers barriers to self-directed learning” (Source 3). There are many “new forms of media” people can explore with and use to carry out their interests, and they become more involved with their peers when they can learn from each other.

Tom Vanderbilt, author of “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About us)” claims that text messaging while driving, or “distracted driving” is comparable to drunk driving in the 1950s. He says “The Science is clear, the laws were becoming clearer, but the culture against drunken driving hadn’t manifested” (Politico). I agree with Vanderbilt; it’s clear that distracted driving puts drivers and passengers at significant risk, yet laws are only now starting to appear concerning the issue, and it’s not yet culturally unacceptable.

This is why technology is a resource that must be used as an advantage, not taken away to stop distraction. Yes, technology can be a distraction, but that doesn’t mean that the entirety of the world’s population revolves around a television. There is so much more to technology than just earbuds and television. This past year of 2014 many new technologies and innovations have been unveiled; computer chips that think like human brains, underwater turbines powered to create green energy, and

All states should enforce laws prohibiting distracted driving by understanding the risk factors, and the effects of distracted driving.

I have chosen to do the stop distractions challenge. The stop distractions challenge I chose, because I feel I need to improve on my time management and cut back some of my time zappers. My distractions are T.V, Cell phone use is a huge time zapper and web surfing are my three major distractions. Using a log to track the amount of time I spend on my distractions would help me to determine what time of the day I will set for myself to get on my phone or watch T.V. having only 2 hours to give to each distraction per week will be the hardest part of the challenge, but I intend to budget wisely. I hope to gain back a lot of free time after completing this challenge, which will allow me more time to study and complete other daily tasks. My overall

In “Does the Internet Make You Dumber？”，Nicholas Carr come up with a suspect whether the internet will make people become foolish. In other words, internet give us the privilege to get much information, and because of this, people may be distracting from continuous interruption. In the whole passage, author Carr uses several examples to illustrate several opinions that states in the reading. The first opinion is people who use electronic way to get the information can be distracted easier than those who get information in the traditional way. The example reading use to illustrate the point is from Patricia Greenfield, a psychologist.

Using the internet for so long has made us addicted, and we constantly rely on it. If you are doing a simple task, such as reading a book, it is a lot harder to concentrate because of the distraction that comes with the Net. Carr’s take on this is

The professor of business and psychology Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic urges that there is a crisis of attentiveness “When information is bountiful, attention is limited and precious” (Tomas 1). The problem of paying attention occurs when we are bombarded with so much information from websites that we can’t focus from all this available information online. Our attention span then becomes scarce from lack of restraint and rules for using the internet making us a “distracting economy”. Professor Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic claims that companies like ted talks, Netflix, and YouTube are “threatening to replace books and lectures, with education entertainment or edutainment” so that we may spend more of our time celebrating performance and storytelling, selecting movies to watch, or watching an infinite supply of internet videos. From personal experience with distractions i can agree with the Professor Tomas in that we are overloaded with information from the internet that our attention has grown smaller as with our ability of self-control. It is my belief that a majority people have very little self-control of themselves since companies are always looking to persuade internet users into getting our attention. The media has overloaded the worldwide web with information that is affecting the minds of people and causing them to lose attention. It is the purpose of Professor Tomas to inform the reader as to how and why companies distract consumers so I will be looking at what he calls a