Maggie Jackson, writer and columnist

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Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age

Maggie Jackson (Prometheus, 2008, paperback fall 2009)
Foreword by Bill McKibben

 Amazon.com | BN.com

We have oceans of information at our fingertips, yet we seek knowledge in Yahoo headlines glimpsed on the run. We are networked as never before, but we connect with friends and family via email and fleeting face-to-face moments that are rescheduled a dozen times. Welcome to the land of distraction.

 Day by day, we are eroding our capacity for deep attention— the building block of intimacy, wisdom and cultural progress. The implications for a healthy society are stark. And yet we can recover our powers of focus. Neuroscience is decoding the workings of attention, with its three pillars of focus, awareness and judgment, and revealing how these skills can be shaped and taught. This is exciting news for all of us living in an age of overload.

In her sweeping quest to unravel the nature of attention and detail its losses, Maggie Jackson offers a compelling wake-up call, an adventure story, and reasons for hope.

Related Articles by Maggie Jackson - 

Attention Class - Boston Globe "Ideas" piece on training attention

"Grab and Go" - An excerpt from Distracted in the renowned journal Gastronomica chronicles our neo-nomadic lives 

"May We Have Your Attention, Please?" - BusinessWeek excerpt from Distracted

"Distracted: The New News World and the Fate of Attention" - An article in Nieman Reports, a journal by Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism 

Acclaim for Distracted 

Wall Street Journal  - "Distracted concentrates the mind on a real problem of modern life." 

Editor's Pick - Seattle Post-Intelligencer A prize-winning columnist for the Boston Globe provides a timely and often horrifying look at our technology-addled lives today."

Wired - "Digital Overload is Frying Our Brains" - Q and A by Brandon Keim

Harvard Management Update - "The Dangers of Distraction" 

Montreal Gazette - "Warning: Information Overload Hurts Productivity"

InsideOut Hudson Valley - Interview with Maggie Jackson

"An Emerging Culture of Attention" - Interview with Maggie  by Andrea Saveri 

NPR's Brian Lehrer Show - WNYC - The venerable NY public radio show tackles distraction - 

The Diane Rehm Show -  The one and only Diane Rehm talks to Maggie about the costs of a distracted citizenry

What’s Happening to Home? Balancing Work, Life and Refuge in the Information Age

Maggie Jackson (Sorin, 2002)

In our chaotic, high-tech age,the lines between work and home, public and private, are becoming increasingly blurred. In this changing time, Jackson explores the ever-changing role of home in our lives — and sets out to update our idea of home.

What’s Happening to Home? goes beyond debates about square footage and working moms, to shed light on the larger questions surrounding the idea of home. How can we find refuge without shortchanging the work lives so many of us value? How can we preserve times and spaces for intimacy and reflection without returning to rigid ideals of the past? Jackson offers an inspiring and illuminating look at the future of home, the centerpiece of our lives.

“Jackson has crafted an insightful book, more a cultural study than a guidebook, that will make readers reexamine how, where and why they work.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Not a book exhorting families to return to another time, this is instead a provocative look at work and family that challenges us to examine our lives and find our own solutions. … Highly recommended.”
—Library Journal

“Maggie Jackson has written an original, thoughtful, helpful book on a subject no smaller than how to live in the world. It is a serious pleasure to read.”
—Roger Rosenblatt


Articles

“Balancing Acts” - Boston Globe column


Guest Blogs - Sloan Work and Family Research Network at Boston College