“Despite its great powers, attention cannot step beyond (its) limits,” observed Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. “It cannot notice or hold in focus more information than can be processed simultaneously. Retrieving information from memory storage and bringing it into the focus of awareness, comparing information, evaluating, deciding — all make demands on the mind’s limited processing capacity. For example, the driver who notices the swerving car will have to stop talking on his cellular phone if he wants to avoid an accident.
“Some people learn to use this priceless resource efficiently, while others waste it. The mark of a person who is in control of consciousness is the ability to focus attention at will, to be oblivious to distractions, to concentrate for as long as it takes to achieve a goal, and not longer. And the person who can do this usually enjoys the normal course of everyday life.”
Now consider what digital media has done to shorten the human attention span in the decades since this was written. What does that imply about the ability “to enjoy the normal course of everyday life?”
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