DISTRACTED

A lucid discussion of attention and how to persuade students to pay it.

A professor of English and director of the D'Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption University, Lang is addressing teachers, but he delivers advice with universal applications. Though modern technology usually receives the blame for restless, distracted students, it’s a problem as old as history. Socrates considered writing a malignant invention, a crutch that destroyed the ability to remember. “The telegraph, the radio, the television, the computer…brought with them critics who argued that they were destroying our attention spans,” writes the author, “turning us into distractible creatures who could no longer focus on our work, our prayers, our study, or one another.” Lang quickly shoots down the idea that modern students can effectively multitask. They can’t, except when one task is trivial, such as folding clothes while watching TV. Studies show that people who believe they are multitasking are actually switching back and forth between two tasks. You can’t text and drive; you either text or drive. Even when not life-threatening, the result is inefficient. Research has demonstrated that it leads to lower grades, including for students sitting near the multitasker. No Luddite, Lang advises against banning devices in favor of limiting their role, and he devotes an appendix to his personal “device policy.” He urges teachers to “make a fundamental shift in our thinking: away from preventing distraction and toward cultivating attention.” Humans are relentlessly curious, so a teacher who follows this approach has a decent chance of pulling student attention away from Instagram. We are built to pay attention to others, and a successful classroom is a community. The author shares many educational thinkers’ low opinion of grading, but he insists on some form of assessment, an irresistible strategy that focuses a student’s attention.

Although aimed at educators, the book offers good lessons in psychology for the average reader.