Second, there is focus.- It's called orienting in scientific circles.- That's the spotlight of your mind""the ability to problem solve but also to give you the ability to relate to others.-
Finally there is something called executive attention and sometimes called executive function- That is the ability to plan, to judge, to resolve conflicting information.- So these are actually now considered three different independent types of attention.- You can be focusing on a speaker in a room and yet be half asleep.- They're two different types of attention.- It is really fascinating.-
Scientists are now beginning to understand when attention develops in children, when it kicks in, when are the prime or "sweet spots' of developing the certain types of attention.- And what is the role of parenting.
Rob Kall:-Which kind of attention is eroding?-
Maggie Jackson:-Well, I think, I argue, and there' s no scientific study to prove all of this, but I would argue that we are eroding our...the higher echelon order of all types of attention.- In other words, we're not using our attentional powers well.- Yes, we're somewhat aware of our surroundings.- Yes, certainly we are using our executive attention skills to get through the day at our jobs.- Sure, we can focus on something, you know, a train wreck if we really need to.- But I think that we're not doing it well, because we're allowing ourselves, our attention to be fragmented, to be diffused.- We've sort of moved to the furthest spectrum.
And the other thing that's really important, is, I mentioned awareness of our environment. Well, humans are biologically programmed, they're born to be interrupted because you need to pay attention to what's new in your environment. At the same time, you need to pursue your goals. You need to remember what you're doing. You need to plan for five years, or five hours from now. It's kind of a balancing act. But...
Rob Kall:-That's the name of your column!
Maggie Jackson:-Yes, it is. I do think that we're off-kilter because we're allowing our environment to go off and control our attention. In other words, we're very reactive. It's the new beat, the new ping, the new something. I think that's why people get through the workday and feel that they never got anything done, that they've barely kept their head above water, simply because they're always reacting. In other words, they're always paying attention to what's new in their environment, but are they really able to keep hold of those, especially those deeper, messy gray-area goals that you really do need to be challenged by.-
Rob Kall:-Your forward is by Bill McKibben, who is a well-known and respected environmentalist. He writes how distraction has always been a human condition, but now every force conspires to magnify that inattentiveness. Technology has made distraction ubiquitous; we're almost always in reach of something to fill our brains. And he talks about how this book of yours explores what it means to be human in the early twenty-first century. And that really hit me, because one of my favorite books is by Robert Wolff; the book called, "What It Is to Be Human."
Maggie Jackson:-I haven't heard about that.
Rob Kall:-The book describes his interactions with an indigenous tribal culture in Malaysia that is now gone, destroyed, wiped out by Malaysia's attempt to kind of clear out the forests.- And this was a people that lived in totally the opposite (type of society).- They had no technology, and they were all about sitting quietly, connecting with nature, and with each other.- That's so far from where we've gone.- And Maggie, what's your website?-
Maggie Jackson:-It's Maggie hyphen Jackson dot com.
Rob Kall:-Maggie, you talk in your book about how trust is a factor in all of this.
Maggie Jackson:-Absolutely.
Rob Kall:-How does trust fit in to attention and distraction?
Maggie Jackson:-Well it doesn't seem at all to be connected to attention and distraction. But I was really intrigued by the way the surveillance of societies that we're surrounded by have trickled into the home.- The idea of people having no privacy, people being watched all of the time in a kind of "Big Brother" way, is now absolutely alive and well in homes.-
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