Summary of Stolen Focus - Why You Can't Pay Attention--and How to Think Deeply Again - A Comprehensive Summary
Walking in Memphis
Johann Heinz: My godson's obsession with Elvis Presley began when he was nine years old. He asked to know everything about Elvis, and so I jabbered out the rough outline of his inspiring, sad story. Without thinking, I agreed to take him to Graceland one day. When I met Adam, he had dropped out of school and spent almost all his waking hours in front of screens. He struggled to stay with a topic for more than a few minutes without jerking back to a screen or abruptly switching to another topic; he seemed to be whirring at the speed of Snapchat.
I'll pay for us to go four thousand miles. But I can't do it if, when we get there, all you're going to do is stare at your phone, he says. "We have to reconnect with something that matters to us." "If you swipe left, you can see the Jungle Room to the left," I told a man and his wife as they looked at their iPads. There's no need for your screen. We're actually here."
"You don't have to see it on your screen," I said. I was fracturing like they were fracturing. I wondered how I was losing my ability to be present too. "And I hated it," says author Roxanne Jones. In Paris, nobody looked at the Mona Lisa for more than a few seconds.
Activities that require longer forms of focus, like reading, have been in free fall for years. I wondered if the motto for our era should be: "I tried to live, but I got distracted." Scientist Roy Baumeister says he is losing some of his ability to focus. He used to be able to sit for hours, reading and writing, but now "it seems like my mind jumps around a lot more." The average American college student spends just 19 seconds a day focused on one thing, compared to an adult working in an office where the median stay-on-focus is three minutes.
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