The Age Of Distraction

Author : Robert Hassan
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351486241
Total Pages : 323 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Age of Distraction written by Robert Hassan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Connections between time, technology, and the processes of reading and writing make clear the links between experiences of what appear to be quite different phenomena. Reading and writing have functioned together in a particular way to build the world as we have known it for three thousand years. These interacting processes have now been transformed at their core and are building a different world, one where certainties of the previous era are disappearing and being displaced by what the author sees as a chronic and pervasive mode of cognitive distraction. Robert Hassan offers a perspective permeated by a sense of history, beginning with the invention of writing and the development of the skill of reading. Together with technological developments, these provide a unique view of the trajectory of modernity into late-modernity, and illustrate how the arc of progress has transformed. New modes of time, technology, and reading and writing are helping create a faster world where we know less about more-and forget what we know evermore quickly. What is the "time" of a thought? Is it possible to measure thinking? Can we consider knowledge or information, or reading and writing, as having temporal "rhythms"? These are questions Hassan tries to answer. So unfamiliar are we to thinking in such terms that they sound impossible. To a significant degree, time, thinking, and many forms of knowledge are the fruits of subjective experience. We connect experiences at superficial levels, where people have different experiences that may be objectively the same, but our interpretations will always diverge in respect of the "reality" we confront. This intersection of philosophy and communication takes the reader into new realms of analysis.

Author : Alan Jacobs
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780199831678
Total Pages : 176 pages
Book Rating : 4.7X/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction written by Alan Jacobs and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, cultural commentators have sounded the alarm about the dire state of reading in America. Americans are not reading enough, they say, or reading the right books, in the right way. In this book, Alan Jacobs argues that, contrary to the doomsayers, reading is alive and well in America. There are millions of devoted readers supporting hundreds of enormous bookstores and online booksellers. Oprah's Book Club is hugely influential, and a recent NEA survey reveals an actual uptick in the reading of literary fiction. Jacobs's interactions with his students and the readers of his own books, however, suggest that many readers lack confidence; they wonder whether they are reading well, with proper focus and attentiveness, with due discretion and discernment. Many have absorbed the puritanical message that reading is, first and foremost, good for you--the intellectual equivalent of eating your Brussels sprouts. For such people, indeed for all readers, Jacobs offers some simple, powerful, and much needed advice: read at whim, read what gives you delight, and do so without shame, whether it be Stephen King or the King James Version of the Bible. In contrast to the more methodical approach of Mortimer Adler's classic How to Read a Book (1940), Jacobs offers an insightful, accessible, and playfully irreverent guide for aspiring readers. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of approaching literary fiction, poetry, or nonfiction, and the book explores everything from the invention of silent reading, reading responsively, rereading, and reading on electronic devices. Invitingly written, with equal measures of wit and erudition, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction will appeal to all readers, whether they be novices looking for direction or old hands seeking to recapture the pleasures of reading they first experienced as children.

Author : Jane Piper
Publisher : Ecademy Press
ISBN 13 : 1784523224
Total Pages : 170 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Focus in the Age of Distraction written by Jane Piper and published by Ecademy Press. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world of work has changed but our ways of working haven’t kept pace. We are now working even harder, longer and at a faster pace than ever before. Longer hours and harder work aren’t going to give us the career and life that we want. Today’s work where you’re selling your brain power and creativity, then your focus, attention, mindset and engagement are what will make the difference. 35 practical and pragmatic tips based on latest research in positive psychology, neuroscience, and common sense, will help you be more focused, creative and productive. Be more focused while at work, get more done, learn to switch off, get on and enjoy your life.

Author : Elizabeth Hanson Hoffman
Publisher : New Harbinger Publications
ISBN 13 : 157224433X
Total Pages : 185 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Staying Focused in the Age of Distraction written by Elizabeth Hanson Hoffman and published by New Harbinger Publications. This book was released on 2006 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book a clinical psychologist and a social worker present a mindfulness and spirituality-based program readers can use to dramatically improve their quality of life by conquering distraction, avoiding overload, and focusing attention on the things they value most.

Author : Gary Rogowski
Publisher : Linden Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9781610353144
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Handmade written by Gary Rogowski and published by Linden Publishing. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, legendary furniture craftsman and teacher Gary Rogowski offers a profound meditation on finding focus, mental clarity, purpose and clarity in the modern age of distraction.

Author : Justin Whitmel Earley
Publisher : InterVarsity Press
ISBN 13 : 1514006936
Total Pages : 136 pages
Book Rating : 4.31/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Common Rule written by Justin Whitmel Earley and published by InterVarsity Press. This book was released on 2023-03-14 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Habits form us more than we form them. The modern world is a machine of invisible habits, forming us into anxious, busy people. We yearn for the freedom of the gospel but remain shackled by our screens and exhausted by our routines. The answer is a rule of life that aligns our habits to our beliefs. The Common Rule's four daily and four weekly habits transform frazzled days into lives of love for God and neighbor. Justin Earley provides doable, life-giving practices to find freedom and rest for your soul. This expanded edition now includes study guide questions for individual reflection and group discussion.

Author : Arthur Boers
Publisher : Baker Books
ISBN 13 : 1441236295
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Living into Focus written by Arthur Boers and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2012-01-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In today's high-speed culture, there's a prevailing sense that we are busier than ever before and that the pace of life is too rushed. Most of us can relate to the feeling of having too much to do and not enough time for the people and things we value most. We feel fragmented, overwhelmed by busyness and the tyranny of gadgets. Veteran pastor and teacher Arthur Boers offers a critical look at the isolating effects of modern life that have eroded the centralizing, focusing activities that people used to do together. He suggests ways to make our lives healthier and more rewarding by presenting specific individual and communal practices that help us focus on what really matters. These practices--such as shared meals, gardening, hospitality, walking, prayer, and reading aloud--bring our lives into focus and build community. The book includes questions for discernment and application and a foreword by Eugene H. Peterson.

Author : Rebecca Z Shafir
Publisher : Quest Books
ISBN 13 : 0835630072
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Zen of Listening written by Rebecca Z Shafir and published by Quest Books. This book was released on 2012-12-20 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TV, radio, traffic, telephones, pagers - our minds are bombarded daily by constant noise and clutter. No wonder so many people find it increasingly difficult to listen and comprehend. Simple pieces of information such as names go "in one ear and out the other." Poor listening may have tragic consequences such as the Challenger disaster and the Potomac River crash of 1982, or it can result in smaller tragedies such as lost promotions, stalled marriages, and troubled children. Rebecca Shafir assures us that we can transform every aspect of our lives, simply by relearning how to listen. The Zen of Listening is grounded in the Zen concept of mindfulness, a simple yet profound way of learning how to filter our distractions and be totally in the present. Rather than a list of tricks, this book is an all-encompassing approach allowing you to transform your life. Readers will be amazed at how simply learning to focus intently on a speaker improves the relationship, increases attention span, and helps develop negotiating skills. Learn the great barricades of misunderstanding, find out how to listen to ourselves, discover how to listen under stress, and boost our memory. This is a fun and practical guide filled with simple strategies to use immediately to enjoy our personal and professional lives to the fullest.

Author : Pico Iyer
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1476784728
Total Pages : 96 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Art of Stillness written by Pico Iyer and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-11-04 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In The Art of Stillness, Iyer draws on the lives of well-known wanderer-monks like Cohen--as well as from his own experiences as a travel writer who chooses to spend most of his time in rural Japan--to explore why advances in technology are making us more likely to retreat. Iyer reflects that this is perhaps the reason why many people--even those with no religious commitment--seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or tai chi. These aren't New Age fads so much as ways to rediscover the wisdom of an earlier age."--Publisher's description.

Author : Matthew B. Crawford
Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374708444
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The World Beyond Your Head written by Matthew B. Crawford and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2015-03-31 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking new book from the bestselling author of Shop Class as Soulcraft In his bestselling book Shop Class as Soulcraft, Matthew B. Crawford explored the ethical and practical importance of manual competence, as expressed through mastery of our physical environment. In his brilliant follow-up, The World Beyond Your Head, Crawford investigates the challenge of mastering one's own mind. We often complain about our fractured mental lives and feel beset by outside forces that destroy our focus and disrupt our peace of mind. Any defense against this, Crawford argues, requires that we reckon with the way attention sculpts the self. Crawford investigates the intense focus of ice hockey players and short-order chefs, the quasi-autistic behavior of gambling addicts, the familiar hassles of daily life, and the deep, slow craft of building pipe organs. He shows that our current crisis of attention is only superficially the result of digital technology, and becomes more comprehensible when understood as the coming to fruition of certain assumptions at the root of Western culture that are profoundly at odds with human nature. The World Beyond Your Head makes sense of an astonishing array of common experience, from the frustrations of airport security to the rise of the hipster. With implications for the way we raise our children, the design of public spaces, and democracy itself, this is a book of urgent relevance to contemporary life.