Author: Caleb Smith
Today, we’re driven to distraction, our attention overwhelmed by the many demands upon it—most of which emanate from our beeping and blinking digital devices.
This may seem like a decidedly 21st-century problem, but, as Caleb Smith shows in this elegantly written, meditative work, distraction was also a serious concern in American culture two centuries ago.
Smith explains that 19th-century worries over attention developed in response to what were seen as the damaging mental effects of new technologies and economic systems.
