bodhi tree swaying

Interesting interview from Wired, with Maggie Jackson, the author of “Distracted.” Ironically I started reading “Distracted” but put it to one side while I immersed myself in some of other books.

Paying attention isn’t a simple act of self-discipline, but a cognitive ability with deep neurobiological roots — and this complex faculty, says Maggie Jackson, is being woefully undermined by how we’re living.

In Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, Jackson explores the effects of “our high-speed, overloaded, split-focus and even cybercentric society” on attention. It’s not a pretty picture: a never-ending stream of phone calls, e-mails, instant messages, text messages and tweets is part of an institutionalized culture of interruption, and makes it hard to concentrate and think creatively.

Of course, every modern age is troubled by its new technologies. “The telegraph might have done just as much to the

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