Attentiveness

A friend of mine frequently notices – and insists that I notice - that I am doing several things at once. Most often these activities involve one or more devices. I might be eating, listening to a story on my tablet, and checking email on my phone. Although I would like to think I can effectively do all of these at once, I know that I am not giving any of them my full attention. I deny myself the pleasure the food I prepared was meant to provide. I inadvertently delete an email that needed a response. And I miss a critical component of the story that makes it hard to follow.  The devices have become an addiction, inattentiveness a self-destructive habit. My friend also points out that it is probably damaging my brain.

In a recent conversation (Mistrust: A Conversation on Harnessing Technology for the Public Good, presented by the Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning at Berkshire Community College) between Ethan Zuckerman, author of Mistrust: Why Losing Faith in Institutions Provides the Tools to Transform Them and Nicholas Car, author of The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, Carr said that schools, at least in the early years, should be refuges from technology, places where children learn to cultivate attentiveness and resist distractions. “But if we think it’s about kids,” he continued, “We’re delusional. It’s about us.” Having grown up without the distraction of technology (except perhaps for eating in front of the TV, which was rarely allowed), this harmful multi-tasking is a recent development in my life. I can only imagine what it is like for the “digital natives” who have never known a time without multiple devices at their fingertips.

One intentionally device free activity in my life yields both peace and productivity. I leave my phone at home when I walk in nature alone, preferring to hear the sounds around me. I savor the birds’ calls, rustling leaves, flowing water. The sounds create a sense of place and set the time apart. If I allow the sounds to recede into the background, a walk becomes a time for thinking. Plans evolve, poems germinate, solutions to problems emerge unbidden. I need to carry this device free attentiveness into the other areas of my life.