On Attention and the Internet

Yeah, I think taste almost can move in two directions. There is that internal sense of what am I feeling when I experience a work of art? What is happening in my own brain, in my soul when I listen to this music?

And then there’s this external idea of it, which is being super self-conscious about what other people are consuming, how they’re... See more

The proper response to this situation, we’re often told today, is to render ourselves indistractible in the face of interruptions: to learn the secrets of “relentless focus”—usually involving meditation, web-blocking apps, expensive noise-canceling headphones, and more meditation—so as to win the attentional struggle once and for all. But this is a... See more

 Attention is a finite resource, and how we choose to spend our attention online is, in some ways, a direct reflection of where human culture has gone in an era where access to information is basically unlimited. We are very much in our teenage years—that is, we suddenly have all these new capabilities and it’s really easy to just run wild. But... See more