To preface, let’s just say that this topic couldn’t be more important now. A number of people have been pointing out the links between my book, with its sub-title flagging a dark age, and the economic mess we are in. An overdependence on our machinery as an outsourced brain, a tendency to undercut our powers of focus and attention, a yearning for the instant, push-button answer rather than the hard work of problem-solving - these are some of the reasons why we face such a deep, steep economic dive.

And then there’s the multitasking. Let’s take a look at the blind love of multitasking in our culture today.

First, I think that we can trace a line between our economic habits and culture and the legacy of Frederick W. Taylor, the great efficiency expert. His influence on global capitalism is still enormous. There’s a section in the book that gives detail, but in brief, he forced workers to chop up work into almost interchangable parts in order to make each piece of a task go faster. In turn, his influential teachings eviscerated the organic quality of craftsmanship and in many senses, turned people into machines, as Peter Drucker and others have noted.

I’ve been particularly intrigued by the spectrum of interest. Parents, educators, politicos, corporate leaders, and workers alike - in this country and around the world - are interested in the book’s portrait of our lives and the suggested solution: to avert a dark age, we must spark a “renaissance of attention.”

Check out this week’s adaptation in BusinessWeek, along with a video interview of me: 

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_25/b4089055162244.htm

Here’s the New York Times guest blog that will appear in this Sunday’s Business section:

http://shiftingcareers.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/attention-must-be-paid/

And today’s interview on BuzzFlash: http://www.buzzflash.com/store/items/1161

Last, Wisconsin Public Radio ran an hour-long talk-show on the book:

http://www.wpr.org/merens/index.cfm?strDirection=Prev&dteShowDate=2008-06-19%2016%3A00%3A00

Stay tuned! As I travel to Minneapolis, Boston, Washington, DC and other cities for talks about the book, I’ll blog further on people’s concerns and suggestions.

The short answer is, I backed into the subject.

The Role of Technology — Overload, hurry, boundary-less living: these topics have been mainstays of my writing for the past decade. But a few years ago, I became fascinated by the role of technology in this new world. The computer, cell phone and then the pda seemed to be rewriting work, home and everything in-between. Was it all so simple: new gadgets, new world? And how could we tame these wondrous devices, since we certainly couldn’t go back to a tech-free age?

I sought clues in history, thinking that the first high-tech age, which ushered in inventions from the telegraph and cinema to the jet, rail and car, could show me how to manage our own frenetic time. And it was eye-opening — but not in the way I expected. I discovered that our lives of split-focus, hyper-mobility, and alternative realities are not all new. Rather, the first high-tech era ushered in new experiences of time, space and place that we’re still wrestling with today. Our age is essentially the culmination of forces unleashed centuries ago.

Epiphany! Attention is the Key — And most importantly, this age of speed and overload is undermining our powers of attention. Attention — that’s the key to understanding how to cope with 21st-century living. We’ve overstepped the boundaries of our attentional capacity – that’s why we’re increasingly miserable amidst our technological riches.

A dark age? — Those two words in the title of my book are attention-grabbers. Are they alarmist? As I began to investigate the fate of attention in a digital age, I dug into studies of turning points in civilization. Perhaps it shook me that great thinkers from Umberto Eco to Harold Bloom to Jane Jacobs have called our time a “dark age.” Perhaps I was struck by the fact that we so often label our own era a new age, be it digital or information. What is a dark age, and why do complex, affluent societies begin to falter? These questions are crucial to understanding the costs of our speed-driven, hyper-complex and attention-deficient lives.

That’s how I came to write a book about attention — and much more.

Distracted isn’t about weighty theories, or dusty trends from the past. It’s all about the new science of attention, which is mapping, decoding and defining this essential human skill for the first time. And it’s about our power bar-grabbing, frenetic multitasking, info-overloaded, cyber-centric, no-time-to-focus lives.

• We connect with millions of people across the globe, but have trouble grabbing dinner with those we love.
• We can tap into billions of info-bytes, yet increasingly we create knowledge from what’s first-up on Google.
• We’ve cut back on sleep and time with hobbies, friends and neighbors — yet still feel that we can’t afford to pause, relax — even take a vacation day.

Distracted is about how we shape the future — and whether we have much of a say in what tomorrow brings, or whether we’re going to give it half an eye and a shred of focus as we hurry on by, too distracted to notice the course of our lives.

Attention — that’s the key!