The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World Hardcover – September 23, 2016

This book is a fresh deviation from the many “self-help” pseudoscience books written by non-scientists that are populating Amazon. It is written by bona-fide neuroscientists and leaders in the field, Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen. The style, however, is that of a professional popular press science writer. I found myself completely drawn in and engaged as the writers hit the balance between science (without being too dry) and popular literature (without being too “fluffy”). In fact, at times, towards the middle to end, it was truly a page-turner. I didn’t want to stop reading.The book hits upon perhaps the singular problem of our day – how to stay focused with so many – primarily electronic – distractions. I personally struggle with this problem every day – wasting untold hours on FaceTime and Twitter every week. Our electronic distractions are extremely effective in grabbing our attention. This book describes the latest theories and insights on why this happens to us, precisely what is going on, and how we might be able to reclaim more control over our attention. There’s also a bit of fMRI research included.It is divided into three parts: 1. “Cognition and the Essence of Control,” 2. “Behavior in a high-tech world,” and 3. “Taking control.”The first is an evolutionary perspective of how our minds work to optimize our survival. Efficient information collection has been fundamental to our survival, however, our instinct for and intrinsic pleasure with absorbing new information through technology is starting to interfere with normal life. Here the authors develop a useful model for attention switching – called “optimal foraging theory” which I thought was a good setup to understand at an intuitive level the factors at play when we are distracted. The basic idea is brought forth with the observation of a squirrel looking for nuts. Once a patch of nuts is found, what determines when the squirrel decides to look for another patch of food? A major factor is how close the other patches likely are. We forage for information, however the “distance” we have to go to find more information is nearly zero (therefore infinitely easy), thus we are always switching, creating a highly non-optimal state. At this stage in the book, I was completely drawn in as the writing was outstanding.The second part goes into the many scientific studies (mostly from the Gazzaley lab) that demonstrate how our performance suffers and how we are absolutely fooling ourselves if we think we can multi-task without a – sometimes significant – deficit in performance for each task. It also further applies the “optimal foraging theory” to our daily lives. The authors explain the role that increased accessibility of information, anxiety, boredom, and reduced metacognition play. This part is packed with insight and puts the construct of attention into an easily understandable and quite accessible framework.3. I would have preferred this section to be a bit more substantial as I could use all the advice I can get! However, the information provided here was all useful and some was truly insightful and innovative. Here they provide a good discussion, based on their own research and that of others, on the pros and cons of what we can do to reign in our attention: traditional education, meditation, cognitive training, video games, exposure to nature, drugs, physical exercise, neurofeedback, and brain stimulation. I was particularly intrigued by several areas. First, Dr. Gazzaley’s most popular research has been on brain training games. Here he discussed what works and what doesn’t as this field is extremely popular yet has shown highly mixed results and has become a bit controversial. I appreciated how he addresses these issues head on – what works and what doesn’t and why . One central issue in brain training games has been with “transfer” of skills obtained in a game to other aspects of real life. Other research on how pretty mundane sounding things like a walk in the woods naturally engages our attention and refreshes our brains was extremely interesting. I personally know that physical exercise is a great short and long term aid for increasing the ability to focus, and was heartened to see the growing body of solid science backing this up. This is the best, most exhaustive list of attention aids that I’ve seen – a great reference even for the researcher planning to delve into this area. Lastly, he ends with some interesting suggestions of phone apps that give feedback on phone use, etc.. The idea here is that the more we are aware, quantitatively, of our distractions the better we can deal with them.Overall, this book struck a great balance between great popular press writing, solid science, true insight, new information, and actionable and practical advice. A satisfying read overall! Now to stop picking up my phone so much…

The book delivered on conclusions that are mostly intuitive, but the hard science and rationality is refreshingly reassuring. Read this to get a thorough explanatory breakdown of what our brains are going through in the 21st century. The suggestions for dealing with distraction felt sound, but were more like familiar reminders than revolutionary methods for change.

Have you noticed how many people are looking at their smartphones while walking, crossing the street or even driving? Does it drive you up the wall that your friends keep checking their phones while you're trying to talk to them or share a meal? Our addiction to gadgets and gizmos has brought us to the brink of an attention crisis, which is not just harmful but dangerous. 80% of all car accidents and 16% of highway deaths result from distracted driving, and every year texting while driving kills thousands of folks before their time. In addition, hundreds of billions of dollars in productivity are lost annually to distraction, not to mention the loss in overall quality of life. Why do we all do this even though we know it's terrible for us? And is there a cure?Goal interruption is the ultimate problem, and the culprits are distractions and interruptions (there's a difference!). According to Drs Gazzaley and Rosen, we are susceptible to them because we still have brains designed for foraging, always scoping the environment for novel information to enhance survival. Unfortunately, modern gizmos plug directly into this foraging circuit, making us go "Squirrel!" even when it's just a picture of one on a screen, and we don't really eat squirrels anymore anyway.Gazzaley and Rosen -- a neuroscientist and psychologist, respectively -- make a strong case that distraction is indeed diminishing the quality of our lives in significant ways. They lay out the science of attention and information processing in a way that is thorough yet accessible to a general audience. What I particularly like about this book is that they themselves have done some of the pioneering research on distraction and attention, so you're getting it straight from the source. I gained a lot of insight into how goal interruption happens. For example:-- Suppressing irrelevant information is not a passive process. It requires effort, and as you get older, you get worse at it, and are more distractable.-- Your brain can only handle one cognitive task at a time, so multitasking is impossible. What you're really doing when you think you're multitasking is 'task switching', and the brain can only do that via network switching: activating a whole different set of circuits. This slows you down, big time.So we've identified the problem -- now what? The last two chapters of the book propose some solutions: educational initiatives, meditation, exercise, brain games, and video games, some of which (like Beepseeker and NeuroRacer) are being developed in the Gazzaley Lab right now. This is cutting-edge stuff, folks, and potentially revolutionary.There's so much more in the book that simply won't fit in a short review. For me, the information was especially important because I've been feeling a lot of my energy and productivity frittering away from distractions like email and social media. How much more could I get done if I managed my mind better? "The Distracted Mind" non-judgmentally frames the problem as the urgent crisis that it is, while proffering some straightforward solutions. Maybe you, too, would like to take back some of your time and attention, or have a loved one that really needs help in this department. If so, this book is the persuasive wallop you need to make the change towards a more goal-oriented, productive, healthy life.-- Ali Binazir, M.D., M.Phil., author of The Tao of Dating: The Smart Woman's Guide to Being Absolutely Irresistible, the highest-rated dating book on Amazon for 4 years