Linda Stone, a Microsoft researcher, was quoted by Thomas Friedman in the
New York Times as describing our present state of mind as one of “continual partial attention.” Friedman himself gets personal: “I love that phrase. It means that while you are answering your e-mail and talking to your kid, your cell phone rings and you have a conversation. Now you are involved in a continuous flow of interactions in which you can only partially concentrate on each.”
“If being fulfilled is about committing yourself to someone else, or some experience, that requires a level of sustained attention,” said Ms. Stone. And that is what we are losing the skills for, because we are constantly scanning the world for opportunities and we are constantly in fear of missing something better. That has become incredibly spiritually depleting.
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