Information and Focus

As winter was slowly setting in, I came across the phrase Information Age while scouring through the internet at blistering speeds using a dial-up connection with speeds less than 56kbps, while conducting research for my dissertation in architecture school in 2001. My friend and I used to spend nights surfing the internet in his father’s office, as that was the only place from where we could access it back then. I was impressed with the amount of information that I could access and the fact that I was able to read current information from across the globe.

Within the next few years, I realised that we had passed very rapidly on to what I liked to call the Information Overload Age, even as data connected mobile phones were still a novelty in India. It did not take long for me to be impacted by the unrelenting, and ever-increasing flood of information. It took a toll on me and in 2010, I remember removing email accounts from my phone in an attempt to stay sane. Over the years, I have learnt to manage the flow of information better and one of the first things I do when I install an app on my phone is to disable notifications. I still get sucked into the unending flow of information occasionally however, it is easier to rein in the temptation.

I still feel I spend more time on my phone than I should, and I see a lot of people who are, for the lack of a better word, addicted to their mobile devices. As we doomscroll our hours away, we are missing out on living in the present along with missing out on things that bring us real joy. I started reading Stolen Focus to try and understand this nagging feeling inside my head about our rapidly changing world and it is one of the most thoroughly researched books that I have read in a long time. We may have watched the movie Idiocracy and read many articles about the impact of extended time spent on our devices, however, this book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the tangible impact on our collective attention and focus, from this constant, unceasing flow of information designed to consume every waking minute of our lives.

#data   #information   #overload   #focus   #living   #experiences #stolenfocus