Past Events
Guest Lecture at UNC
Multitasking’s Hidden Costs
March 14th, 2021
3:30 - 4:30 pm
UNC Chapel Hill, NC
What is “Knowing” Today? What are Multitasking’s hidden costs? Is all-digital living the new norm? It’s an honor for me to visit the renowned sociologist Howard Aldrich‘s class at UNC/Chapel Hill to discuss these timely questions about technology’s impact on humanity.
We are now beginning to understand multitasking’s hidden costs. Split-focus living frustrates our abilities to discern, connect, and innovate in the moment – and over time. In other words, a steady diet of multitasking trains us to become shallow thinkers even when we’re trying to focus!
The class also will discuss my recent viral Boston Globe opinion piece on uncertainty’s critical role in good thinking. Uncertainty – knowing what you don’t know – is a pillar of excellence in cognition, along with attention and reflection, and this maligned and misunderstood mindset is the subject of my next book, Uncertainty!
Appearance on the PreFrontal Podcast
Attention and Thinking: A Critical Marriage
December 7th, 2020
What is Executive Function? How does attention help us think? Our skill in paying attention and our capacity to think well go hand in hand and are equally critical to human flourishing. But too often we overlook the deep ties between attention and thinking.
In this exciting event, I join Sucheta Kamath, an award-winning speech pathologist, on her popular Full PreFrontal podcast. We will discuss attention’s essential links to “Executive Function,” a set of skills that allow us to think flexibly, control our thoughts, and manage our minds. (Bonus: we’ll talk about my new book on the upsides to uncertainty, a state of mind critical to both attention and thought.)
On her show, Kamath discusses cutting-edge cognitive research with noted neuroscientists, social psychologists, and thought leaders.
Panelist at the 21st Annual Convention of the Media Ecology Association
Technology’s Role in a Turbulent World
June 17th, 2020
5:30 - 6:45 pm EST
Virtual
Can we Tweet the Next Revolution? Will Camera-Videos Create Urgently Needed Social Justice Reforms? Does Social Media Help or Hurt Progress in A Turbulent World?
Join me for a provocative plenary panel on the opening day of the Media Ecology Association’s annual conference, now online. Fellow panelists include Webby Awards founder Tiffany Shlain; media critic Doug Rushkoff; science fiction writer Josh Meyrowitz; media scholar Paul Levinson and the noted communications scholar Lance Strate of Fordham.
The MEA, founded by students of Neil Postman and Marshall McLuhan, is the premier association of scholars and practitioners exploring technology’s influence on society, from individual thought to the fate of the planet.
Live Chat and Q&A Hosted by the NY Society Library
The New Work-Home Equation: How to Flourish When Office and Life Are One
May 18th, 2020
12:00 - 12:30 pm EST
Virtual
How can we tame distractions when the office has moved full-time into our homes?
Can we find time for refuge when home is more porous than ever before?
How can we push back on the blur that work and home have become in the pandemic-era? Or is this the milestone moment when the Pandora’s Box of always-on digital life can’t be reversed?
At the invitation of The New York Society Library, Maggie Jackson hosts a YouTube Live interactive chat and Q&A with members and the public to discuss the costs and benefits of the new telework.
Talk and Book Signing at the Brownell Library
Reclaiming Our Focus in a Distracted World
September 29th, 2019
6:00 - 7:00 pm
Little Compton, RI 02837
In this interactive talk and book-signing at the venerable Brownell Library, Maggie Jackson discusses why we’re failing to solve one of the most pressing problems of our time: the fragmentation of attention that is eroding our abilities to problem-solve, innovate, and care for one another.
Jackson will draw from the new updated 2018 edition of her acclaimed classic Distracted: Reclaiming Our Focus in a World of Lost Attention.
The first edition of Distracted was compared by Fast Company to Silent Spring for its far-sighted warnings of our current crisis of inattention. With a preface by Bill McKibben, the book sparked a global conversation on the steep costs of tech-induced distraction. Now Jackson’s work is “more essential than ever,” according to Nicholas Carr.
Jackson will discuss how we can at last harness the technological marvels of our age and turn data into knowledge and distraction into skillful attention. We must, Jackson argues, curb technological excess by cultivating the full gamut of our attentional capabilities. We must look first to the human behind the device.
Guest Expert at The People’s University
Fighting Poverty Via Respectful Dialogue
June 1st, 2019
3:00 - 6:00 pm
New York Fourth World House
172 First Avenue
New York , New York 10009
How can we share knowledge to create a more peaceful, just and inclusive society? How can we pay close attention to those who are unheard in our era of technological disconnection, vast income schisms, and political divides? These are issues that affect us all, no matter our economic or cultural place in society. This June, I am honored to be an invited guest expert at the summer New York session of the People’s University, a project of the Fourth World anti-poverty movement. Begun in France, Fourth World connects people across all walks of life globally so that diverse viewpoints can be shared on how to counter poverty and its many rippling effects on the environment, health, family relations, and communities. A highlight of their work is the People’s University, which is held three times a year in cities around the globe. This summer’s theme: technology’s impact on humanity. Free and Open to All!
Talk at the Montclair Children’s School
Lost in the Instant
April 24th, 2019
6:00 - 7:30pm
Montclare Children's School
747 Amsterdam Avenue
New York, NY 10025
Today we are lost in the instant and drowning in distraction. How can families cultivate focus and connection in an era of overload? How can busy parents teach young digital natives the skills of attention and reflection that matter more than ever? Join Distracted author Maggie Jackson, a renowned expert on tech-life balance, for an eye-opening talk. She will discuss the roots of our split-screen culture, the latest science on the mind, and workable ways for all generations to thrive as humans today. Jackson will draw from the new updated edition of her acclaimed book Distracted: Reclaiming Our Focus in a World of Lost Attention (Sept. 2018) and her book-in-progress on uncertainty as opportunity in a darkening time.
Panelist at Arena Stage’s Civil Dialogue
Digital Well-Being
October 14th, 2018
5:00 - 7:00 pm
Arena Stage at Mead Center for American Theater - Molly Smith Study
1101 Sixth Street SW
Washington, D.C., DC 20024
In this nationally broadcast Civil Dialogue on digital well-being hosted by Arena Stage in DC, Maggie Jackson will serve as a dialogue starter (panelist) for a dialogue on how we can re-envision our promising and yet often toxic relations with our machines. The free event is the sixth of a series hosted by Arena Stage this year.
The dialogues seek to provide an opportunity for members of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan community to engage in discourse about major current issues. They also seek to demonstrate that people of very diverse viewpoints can have fruitful dialogues with one another.
To this event, Jackson will bring her growing expertise in the new arena of digital well-being, a notion of rising importance and interest today. How can we flourish as humans in a time of growing tech-induced disconnection and disillusionment? How can we create more healthy relationships with our devices, our robots, and the inescapable powerful invisible force that is the web?
Drawing from her groundbreaking book Distracted: Reclaiming Our Focus in a World of Lost Attention, now out in a new updated edition, Jackson will discuss the roots of our crisis of inattention and why our survival may depend on how we operate at the intersection of technology and attention.
Lecture at the New York Society Library
A Distracted Age
September 12th, 2018
6:30 - 8:00 pm
New York Society Library
53 E 79 Street
New York, NY 10075
In this talk and book-signing at the venerable New York Society Library, the author of Distracted Maggie Jackson discusses why we’re failing to solve one of the most pressing problems of our time: the fragmentation of attention that is eroding our abilities to problem-solve, innovate, and care for one another.
The first edition of Distracted was compared by Fast Company to Silent Spring for its far-sighted warnings of our current crisis of inattention. Now in an updated edition with an incisive new preface, Jackson offers both a renewed wake-up call and a path forward as we reckon with epidemic distraction.
In this lecture and Q&A, she will discuss how we can at last harness the technological marvels of our age and turn data into knowledge and distraction into skillful attention. We must, Jackson argues, curb technological excess by cultivating the full gamut of our attentional capabilities. We must look first to the human behind the device.
Atlantic/Google Summit on Humanity + Tech
Digital Well-Being
September 5th, 2018
9:00 am - 4:00 pm
MIT Media Lab, 6th Floor
75 Amherst Street
Cambridge , MA 02139
In this livestreamed session on digital well-being at the Atlantic/Google Summit on Humanity + Tech, the author of Distracted: Reclaiming Our Focus in a World of Lost Attention (Sept. 11, 2018) discusses what it means to flourish as humans in a digital world with Glen Murphy, the Google design head for user experience at Android and Chrome.
Why do we feel so conflicted about our tech-induced connectivity, the instant answers and social ties that we thought would make the world more peaceful, informed, and productive? How can we better control our barrages of social media and infostreams? In this fireside-style chat, Jackson and Murphy discuss the steps that tech companies are taking to help users restore lost boundaries between the digital and “real” worlds, and probe the next moves needed to make all players in the matrix more responsible. What are the new metrics for well-being in a digital world?
This session is part of a Summit at MIT Media Lab that will bring together tech experts, inventors, educators, critics, and digital natives for a day of debate, investigation, and questioning.