Afflicted with the Attention Span of Caffeinated Chipmunks

Afflicted with the Attention Span of Caffeinated Chipmunks

We find ourselves in a strange era, one in which the very faculties required for deep thought and consideration appear to be eroding rapidly. I am speaking, of course, of the attention span—that essential human ability to focus one's mental energies on a single task, idea, or work.

For we denizens of the modern world seem increasingly incapable of paying attention. Ours is the age of the click and the swipe, the skim and the scroll. From our pocket devices we ingest information in bite-sized morsels, flickering from one digital stimulus to the next in a manic game of mental ping pong. We devour little but digest less.

In our frenetic consumption of glib amusements and virtual trifles, we display the attention span not of sober students but of caffeinated rodents. Where once we might apply years of diligent study to a single topic or text, we now struggle to follow a paragraph from beginning to end without succumbing to distraction. Our thoughts bounce and dart like squirrels in traffic.

What has atrophied our powers of concentration so? The technologies molding the modern mind share much blame. For they interject at every moment the possibility of novelty, titillating our brains' craving for fresh stimulation. When dull tasks loom, we reach reflexively to our screens, seeking refuge in the blinking lights and chirping notifications. Our devices deliver intermittent reinforcement like Las Vegas slot machines, training us to flit from one digital reward to the next.

Like a circus ringmaster cracking his whip, the algorithms underlying these technologies keep us performing this dance of perpetual distraction. Our overtaxed brains strain to produce the needed dopamine to sustain interest, even as our capacity for deep attention wanes. We cannot sit still without a device buzzing in our hand, lest we feel a tinge of boredom.

I say we must reclaim our greater intellectual heritage and cultivate our endangered attention. For while technology unfettered gradually transforms us into a society of jittery heathens, we need not be passive victims. We must set firm parameters around tool use to avoid enslavement. When necessary, we must put aside the devices altogether and sit with our thoughts, murky and discomforting though they may initially seem.

The effort will be arduous, for modern life conspires to subvert it. But we should persist, beginning with small acts of focused immersion like reading a book cover to cover. Through such small acts cultivated daily, we gradually regain authority over our fractured attention. And in doing so, we take the first steps toward reclaiming our full human dignity and potential, which depend on the ability to pay profound attention not just to flashing gadgets, but to the deepest mysteries and questions before us.