More Than Ever

Distraction@10

I first begin using Evernote in 2009 and starting saving articles to read later, which I haven't done until now. My "To Read" tag now has 1458 items in it. Apparently, I was distracted and never read them, and now reading them for the first time. It's almost unnerving (actually "nerving") to read 2010 articles about the perils of distraction and multitasking and realize we are distracted more than ever. 

Here are some titles/snippets from articles in 2010. Some may already be dead links. (Read, don’t hoard):

“One of the more embarrassing and self-indulgent challenges of our time is the task of relearning how to concentrate. The past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything. To sit still and think, without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine, has become almost impossible.” http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_snd-concentration.html

Cloud Culture: The Promise And The Threat https://edge.org/conversation/cloud-culture-the-promise-and-the-threat

Time To Start Taking The Internet Seriously http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gelernter10/gelernter10_index.html

How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future

Gadgets in Emergency Vehicles Seen as Driving Peril  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/technology/11distracted.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print

The Data-Driven Life http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02self-measurement-t.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=print

The Risks of Parenting While Plugged In http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/garden/10childtech.html?ref=technology&pagewanted=print

Losing our minds to the web http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/06/losing-our-minds-to-the-web/

Building One Big Brain http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/the-web-we-weave/?ref=technology

“It's also reasonable to expect computers to help clean up the mess they have made.  They dump huge quantities of information into the cybersphere every day.  Can they also help us evaluate this information intelligently?  Or are they mere uncapped oil wells pumping out cyber-pollution — which is today just a distraction but might slowly, gradually paralyze us, as our choices and information channels proliferate out of control?  As each of us is surrounded by a growing crowd of computer-paparazzi all shouting questions and waving data simultaneously, and no security guards anywhere?” http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gelernter10.1/gelernter10.1_index.html

The internet: is it changing the way we think? http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/aug/15/internet-brain-neuroscience-debate/print

Outdoors and Out of Reach, Studying the Brain http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/technology/16brain.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

Democracy Still Matters http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/opinion/21iht-edcohen.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

How America will collapse (by 2025) Four scenarios that could spell the end of the United States as we know it -- in the very near future http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/12/06/america_collapse_2025