The ages of distraction
aeon.co
The ages of distraction
1–10 of 33 posts
Re: The ages of distraction
#2I remember sitting with my father who was filing taxes, manually doing all the calculations and noting down the numbers in a spreadsheet like form. While finalizing, it took a two hour debugging session to find the mistaken calculation that had trickled down to the result.
The fact that now I don't even need to know the complexity of tax structure to file taxes let alone do calculations makes me wonder if people waste time because technology has enabled us to save so much of it.
Re: The ages of distraction
#3Do the same complaints exist from thinkers/pholosophers of Asia? I feel like there is a substantial difference in thought from the Buddhists for instance, and the zen way of thinking that encourages people to accept who they are. This idea of self-improvement, which is what's at the bottom of all these critiques of the young being inattentive and distracted, is dismantled by people like Alan Watts who claims that the reason why you want to be better is the same reason why you aren't.
In essence, people like Watts want to tell you, or convince you, that there's nothing you can do to improve, you would already be that person if you had it in you. Now I'm not here to argue whether or not this view is correct nor am I interested in reading your anecdotes on how that can't be right. What I am interested in knowing is whether or not these complaints about distraction and inattention are uniquely Western. What do the Africans or the Asians say about this through the course of history?
Re: The ages of distraction
#4Distractions are not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, they aid the process of discovery. The issue is that nowadays our distractions are "on demand" and "personalized", which, if we're not careful, can take away the benefits and leave us worse off.
Re: The ages of distraction
#5As someone who at one point grew up without the internet, I think I can safely say that my attention has gone out the window with the web. There are just too many things to look at now and browser tabs are constantly competing for my attention. In fact, I would blame inattention for the lack of personal success in my life. Hell, it was even hard getting through the entire article, I just wanted to skip to the end and read the comments. Ugh... sad. Also, it doesn't help that we have news feeds like Hacker News, Designer News, Reddit etc...spewing info left and right. Before the sharing of information you'd be familiar with the work of a few, now everything is out there and your access to information is pretty much unlimited - that's a lot of info competing for limited attention.
Re: The ages of distraction
#6Do the same complaints exist from thinkers/pholosophers of Asia? I feel like there is a substantial difference in thought from the Buddhists for instance, and the zen way of thinking that encourages people to accept who they are. This idea of self-improvement, which is what's at the bottom of all these critiques of the young being inattentive and distracted, is dismantled by people like Alan Watts who claims that the…
I would say that honing your discipline is widely promoted in Asia.
Re: The ages of distraction
#7Personally I have been a victim of this, about 7-8 years ago I was so much able to sit at one place without a phone or internet and study for 14-16 Hours. And I loved how much I was able to do in a single day, but today I find reading a book or a long article so hard (Even while writing this comment I was distracted thrice by my phone beeping for attention), In last few days I have been trying hard to get back to how It all used to be but nothing has been working. We give more attention to unimportant things today than to ourself. These digital devices and options are biggest attention seeker today and once you give them the toe they will suck you up whole inside. Please help me with some methods if anyone has I would appreciate finding a way out of this digital/social mess.
Re: The ages of distraction
#8Personally I have been a victim of this, about 7-8 years ago I was so much able to sit at one place without a phone or internet and study for 14-16 Hours. And I loved how much I was able to do in a single day, but today I find reading a book or a long article so hard (Even while writing this comment I was distracted thrice by my phone beeping for attention), In last few days I have been trying hard to get back to how…
You gave the device access (to yourself), you must take it away...
From the other side, I have very little social interaction (no phone or Facebook) and I'm not so sure it's a better choice. Sure, I have free time, but I am also "out of the loop", which has it's own social stigma.
Re: The ages of distraction
#9Do the same complaints exist from thinkers/pholosophers of Asia? I feel like there is a substantial difference in thought from the Buddhists for instance, and the zen way of thinking that encourages people to accept who they are. This idea of self-improvement, which is what's at the bottom of all these critiques of the young being inattentive and distracted, is dismantled by people like Alan Watts who claims that the…
I'd say complaining and being open about your own shortcomings is a somewhat Western thing in general.
Kind of ties into the concepts of guilt vs shame societies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society
Re: The ages of distraction
#10Do the same complaints exist from thinkers/pholosophers of Asia? I feel like there is a substantial difference in thought from the Buddhists for instance, and the zen way of thinking that encourages people to accept who they are. This idea of self-improvement, which is what's at the bottom of all these critiques of the young being inattentive and distracted, is dismantled by people like Alan Watts who claims that the…
I'd say complaining and being open about your own shortcomings is a somewhat Western thing in general. Kind of ties into the concepts of guilt vs shame societies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_society https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society
> The distinction between shame and guilt as methods of social control has long been recognized.
Both articles cites very few sources about that distinction being useful or acknowledged by sociology. I see both articles relies heavily on « Japanese Perceptions of The Chrysanthemum and the Sword ».
Is there more substance and relevance to the concept ? What does it explain ?