Numb. Charles R. Chaffin
you are sitting. Attention is a limited resource, so we have to be selective about what we want to focus. If you have this book open, you cannot focus on the words on this page if you are attending to the sound of the neighbors arguing next door. Given that attention is linked to our consciousness, we have in it a valuable and finite resource that requires careful management. If you do not have control of your attention, someone or something else will take it. Walking through any city or town, you will notice the sights, sounds, and even smells that are clamoring (sometimes literally) for your attention. Advertisers and proprietors large and small all know that if your attention is captured, your wallet may soon follow. They use colorful signs and ads, music, and a host of other tactics to lure your attention to their product. Incidentally, my favorite is Cinnabon. They purposely place those ovens in the front of the store to grab your attention with that delicious cinnamon smell. My wallet indeed follows my attention, which takes me on a path towards deliciousness, followed by an even longer path on the treadmill to compensate for it!
Lots of humans in our lives want our attention, too. Bosses, partners, families, and neighbors all want varying levels of our attention at different times. Some want our attention focused towards our work and others want attention focused on their needs to be heard, touched, and loved. When we focus our attention on people and activities, they tend to go better. Or perhaps better stated, if we do not focus our attention on people and activities, they have a higher likelihood of going much worse. If you do not focus your attention on your spouse or partner for a week or a day or maybe even a moment at dinner, it is likely not going to guarantee a healthy interaction. If you do not focus your attention on your work, the quality of your work will likely suffer as well.
The relationship between attention and this information age is powerful. Technology, and all the information that comes along with it, has created numerous places where we can devote our attention. We can (and do) spend our time fixated on the screens around and with us all day, scrolling through social media feeds, responding to text messages, and swiping left and right to glance at profiles of potential mates. We can binge‐watch Netflix, YouTube, and cable news programs, and argue with strangers on Twitter about politics, sports teams, and the best breed of cat to own during a blizzard. Each of these activities can take us down rabbit holes that can kill hours per day. We all seem to receive emails by the dozen. Adobe surveyed 1,000 workers and found that they spend on average close to five hours per day checking email. Five hours looking inside a mailbox! It is rather astounding that given the amount of time that so many of us spend reading, responding, and composing emails that “Outlook Etiquette” isn't part of the interview process for many employment positions. “Do you end your emails with ‘Sincerely’ or ‘Best’? We are really looking for a ‘I hope you are well' person to join our team.” Oh, and “Read‐receipt people need not apply.” Nevertheless, each of our emails require our attention to read, process, and respond, knowing full well that there will likely be another email volleyed back like a never‐ending tennis match. Whether in our professional or personal lives, our attention is taxed constantly in this information age. Making sense of it all, deciding what is relevant and what isn't, as well as prioritizing what is important, is an art and science in and of itself. Essentially, this information age expands the possibilities of places for us to spend our attention.
Beyond the cognitive aspects associated with the information age, I spent a great deal of time reflecting upon the nature of experience. I started to question what was authentic and what was not. This is not just a commentary relative to fake news, although that is certainly part of it and addressed in this book. I was thinking more about authenticity when it comes to our life experiences, from what gives us joy and happiness to how and if we are truly present with the people and experiences that make up daily life. Picking up my smartphone at dinner to get that dopamine fix via social media meant that I wasn't really present with that friend sitting across the table from me. Is that dopamine hit that comes from the push notification or the attention that comes from a “like” on social media really an authentic experience? In his book The Necessity of Experience, Edward Reed identifies ecological information as the type of information that “all humans acquire from their environment through looking, listening, feeling, sniffing, and tasting.” Essentially, Reed describes ecological information as things we experience “for ourselves.” He identifies the power that ecological information has in engaging with other human beings, including reading their facial expressions, listening carefully to the tone of their voice, and all of the other verbal, nonverbal, and visual signs that accompany our engagement and shared experiences with other human beings. Through technology and this age of information, we see a shift in focus to processed information, which Reed defines as secondhand: signs and symbols based upon our primary experience with one another. These secondhand experiences, whether via television, social media, porn, or any other experience that is conveyed to us by others, has become more dominant than experiencing the world firsthand for ourselves. We seem to be spending an increasing amount of time hearing or viewing the experiences of others rather than participating ourselves. When we think about the idea of FOMO – fear of missing out – it is no wonder that so many of us experience it because we spend a lot of time in the audience observing others. Maybe we are actually missing out!
We all experience the benefits of this information age, from connecting with others across multiple geographic regions to the accessibility of information, whether news, education, or Wikipedia. Information, and the technology that goes along with it, makes our lives better. We have seen during the COVID‐19 pandemic an ability for some of us to keep working and at least engaging on some level with those we care for most, even if remotely. However, over the course of the last several years (even prior to the pandemic), I started questioning the impact of this information age on many aspects of our lives. I began reflecting on the relationship between information and my biases, habits, and even participation in echo chambers. I started to wonder how we have all of this information at our fingertips (or in our pockets), and yet we seem to be increasingly less informed. I started thinking about the potential impact of our compassion for those closest to us when we are regularly exposed to graphic images of the suffering of others from far away. With the increasing number of choices available to us, I wondered about our ability to navigate so many options, whether choosing a jar of jam or a life partner? I also began to realize the impact of loneliness on people of all ages and questioned how this was possible when social media was such a big part of our lives. The hours per day that we spend on our smartphones scrolling and texting are immense. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, what happens at the end of our lives when we look back on all of this time? Will we see this engagement as authentic and enhancing our in‐person experiences or will we see it as a waste of time, providing short‐term satisfaction at the expense of long‐term goals and relationships? The answer for each of us is likely different. For me, it seemed as if there was something missing from this engagement. The short‐term dopamine hit was coming at the expense of authentic engagement. The regular access to all the hyperbole, hysteria, and echo chambers began to numb me, making me feel overwhelmed with emotion. Compassion fatigue is only one component of this short yet broad work, but it was the genesis of this book. I began to reflect that the emotion I was feeling from information on the screen was creating a level of apathy in my real life. Essentially, I was hearing about bad news and suffering all day viewing the news and social media, so I didn't need more of it in real life. Real life is where I can make a difference. Real life is the people who are closest to me whom I care about. I needed to better understand this phenomenon so I could be present with them. I wanted authenticity.
That brings us to Numb. My objective with this book was to better understand, and then ultimately outline, the pushes and pulls on our attention in this information age. Perhaps more importantly, I wanted to outline some of the psychological factors that are created through this information age and its impact on our attention. And finally, what is the “so what?” of all of this, meaning what can we do about it to make our lives better in some way, shape, or form? Although Numb is not a novel by any means, it does tell a story of how we so often become engrossed in technology looking for love through likes, swipes, and a host of other bells and whistles. In many cases, we constantly return to social media and many other apps looking for love, attention, and recognition only to fail at finding it. We become addicted to that pursuit, through dopamine loops and habits. If we are not careful, we can find ourselves