Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age Book

Don't laugh, but I merely skimmed this book.

I heard Maggie Jackson on a radio interview and was intrigued by her discussion of the apparent diminishing of our attention spans. After my perusal of the book, I determined that the anecdotal nature of her material made for better radio than reading. While trying to give this book a serious read, I wearied quickly of the platitudes regarding the displacement of our attention from such things as books to such things as twitter.

Even more quickly, I got tired of the author's stylistic decision to introduce and interrupt every chapter with incessant anecdotes that I assume the author included in order to create some colorful context for the points she wanted to make. I found these digressions annoyingly distant from her focus. The notes and bibliography suggest this is a scholarly study, but it reads too much like a personal memoir. I want to know what you learned from your meeting with Professor Posner, not what the weather was like when you met him.

This quick example illustrates this aggravating style:

"Back home, Posner settled into a favorite chair, with a mug of coffee and his chocolate-and-black miniature schnauzer, Annie, by his side. Rain pattered on the cone-shaped roof of the simple, octagonal wooden yurt, as I peppered him with questions about what is perhaps the greatest detective story of our time: understanding how the brain--and especially attention--works."

And more like this on every other page. So, yes, I skimmed.