Of course, no one wants to hear that the dark ages are coming, so Jackson provides a means of hope: to instill rigorous attentional training in youths to keep us from getting distracted, through hard work and gumption. Never mind that A.D.D. is a clinically recognized condition, or that the current American public school system can barely train grade school students to read, let alone pay attention. Jackson, who wants to return humanity to its attentional origins, may seriously have her heart in the right place. But she ends up sounding like every grandparent who has ever lived, one who’s nostalgic for the less foolhardy days of his or her own youth. For all the psychology Jackson has read, she has obviously not read much political psychology.
Distracted has the problem of going up against Nicholas Carr’s much more intelligently and responsibly argument of the same point in last month's Atlantic Monthly. She also has published the book in an election season where the Internet has played a crucial role, and where the less technically adept campaigns have been left in the dust. We shouldn’t blame Jackson for failing to see things more progressively. Society has changed, for good or for bad, just as it always has. Jackson is only human.
Article comments