Since at least 2008, when the US tech journalist Nicholas Carr asked: “Is Google making us stupid?”, there has been a sense of crisis around our concentration spans. Distraction is everywhere, and so are its putative antidotes. Apps such as PawBlock, offering cute animal pictures instead of your social media fix, and screen modes such as Microsoft’s Focus, are the tech versions of mindfulness, the perceived panacea for all modern ills. On the other hand, speed‑reading programs such as QuickReader hold out the promise of absorbing more content in less time. We are utterly conflicted about the relationship between concentration and distraction.
Behind these worries and their remedies are two connected assumptions, typically blamed on our addiction to the dopamine highs of social media. The first is that our distractedness is both recent and negative; the second, that our concentration was better in the past. Carr recollects that formerly he would read immersively, engaging deeply with narrative, like a scuba diver. Now he is a jetski reader, skimming across the surface at speed. It is a compelling, and immediately recognisable, assessment.
