Preserving Three Pillars of Attention - Essay Example

? Preserving the Three Pillars of Attention Thesis ment Human beings are faced by continued distractions that reduce the capability to improve their knowledge despite of having adequate resources and technology. However, an individual can decide to choose on strategies and principals that will enhance the three pillars of attention, which include, focus, attention, and awareness. College students should make choices such as having a clear vision, avoid multitasking, and enhance their information literacy to maintain the three pillars of attention. Book Summary Distracted is a book by Maggie Jackson who is an author and a journalist. The book’s credibility is enhanced by the fact that the content is based on information that is backed by adequate research. Jackson documents her vast travels and describes her meetings and discussions with professionals and researchers in various fields ranging from biological and physical sciences to arts and technology. Jackson’s ideas flow coherently in the book and the smooth read is captivating. Some of the topics in the book stand out and catch the reader by surprise because of their bizarreness. The organization of her thoughts and her ability to summarize them in a way that can be easily understood hints at her experience as a journalist indicating that individuals live in a “virtual, mobile, split focus world” (129). At the introduction, Jackson expresses her opinion that is the motivation for the book’s content. She believes that society is gradually heading towards a bleak future because of a stagnant culture and society. She believes that society is fast losing its ability to focus because of the nature of contemporary life, and that this lack of focus has corroded the ability to be keen and aware. Attention is crucial for intimacy to develop between the members of the society, and this intimacy contributes to cultural development. Jackson’s point that the society is headed towards a dark future because of an attention deficit provokes the reader’s thoughts. All the nine chapters of Jackson’s book are organized under three major parts including lengthening shadows: exploring our landscape of distraction, deepening twilight: pursuing the narrowing path and dark Times…or Renaissance of attention. The chapters under the first and second parts of the book are each titled “Focus,” “Judgment” and “Awareness.” In the last part of the book, she reveals that the titles of the chapters in the first and second parts are the three levels of the attention system. Chapter one of Jackson’s book focuses on presenting Jackson’s idea on distraction and the role that technology plays in society’s attention, or lack of it. The second, third and fourth chapters reveal what Jackson sees as the three main settings that shelter the problems that encourage the continued lack of attention. In chapter five, Jackson highlights privacy issues, with arguments that revolve around how social media like Facebook and surveillance impact negatively on trust whereby she indicates, “…we are nurturing a culture of social diffusion…” (94). Chapter six of the book focuses on the written word concerning interaction with individuals. In chapter seven, Jackson questions the impact of technology on society. She leaves the reader to ponder the thought whether machines are evolving to be more like humans or if humans are evolving to be more like machines. The eighth chapter addresses the idea of preservation and the challenges it faces. In the ninth and last chapter, Jackson focuses on the duty and importance of attention. It is in this last chapter that Jackson explains the three networks of the attention system as she offers the solution to distraction. One could argue that Jackson’s move of dividing the chapters under titles is a forced construction. Jackson’s books focus on individuals in United States of America. Despite her sources and facts being from credible sources, a reader outside of the United States of America may not identify the problems and results in the book because all those sampled were American only. However, the author of the book conveys the theme of maintaining the three pillars of attention effectively. Jackson’s book ends up giving hope to readers by encouraging them to adopt mediation that will help them to increase their focus. Three Choices for college students to preserve focus, judgment and awareness i. Have a clear vision and continuous mediation to maintain focus Having a vision is important for a college student because it helps guide the student toward the goals that the student has set to avoid what Jackson terms as, “…splinter out focus and plunge into alternative realities…” (41). Articulate vision is effective in keeping and maintaining the college student on focused. For a college student, one-liner vision statement is not enough. A college student’s clear vision should be a combination of ideas that express the student’s purpose and reason to maintain focus, the student’s values and who the student is striving to become in future, and the student’s strategy to achieve their goals. When a college student has a clear vision, they have a sense of purpose and identity and this helps to maintain focus. A clear vision will help a college student to organize their goals and set priorities. This will help in maintaining focus as the student focuses on one goal at a time and minimizes the chances of distraction. An articulate vision will help a college student to direct their focus to the people who can be instrumental to helping them achieve their goals. A clear vision will help the college student to see the ‘big picture’ and this will help to maintain focus. Meditation is an effective way that a college student can achieve clarity of vision. ii. Information literacy to enhance and maintain awareness Information literacy refers to the particular skill set that one needs to be able to get, analyze and utilize information. College students often assume that reading books and writing assignments and research paper is sufficient to help them gain skills in information literacy but this alone is not enough. College students often experience the predicament where too much information comes towards them too fast and from all directions and they do not know what to do with, a situation known as data smog. Data smog causes a barrier between people’s lives. Data smog leads to the erosion of deep and continuous perceptive attention, which Jackson describes as “slipping toward a new dark age” (124). This is where Information Literacy should be able to help the college student. The skills that a college student acquires through information literacy will allow the student to cope with the large volume of data, analyze, and evaluate it to decide how to use the different data effectively. Information literacy will help the college student to enhance and maintain awareness, which is important in building intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress. iii. Avoid multitasking to enhance judgment capability Multitasking by humans refers to the act of juggling many tasks or activities simultaneously. A college student should avoid multitasking because it has been scientifically proven to reduce productivity. While a college student may be lead to believe that multitasking is a skill that is valued in the contemporary world, it would be in the student’s best interest to keep multitasking at a minimum. Bouncing from task to task will make it difficult for the student to keep from being distracted. Multitasking will cause a mental block that will reduce judgment capability and slow down progress. A college student should take a moment and focus on one task at a time. When the student directs their attention to one task at a time, it enhances their judgment because the student does not have to choose which activity to direct most attention to. Avoiding multitasking will increase productivity. Works cited Jackson, Maggie. Distracted. Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 2008. Print. Read More