Attention is the New Affection
Recently, I was shopping in a grocery store. It was a large shopping trip with items on my list from several departments. As I approached an aisle that contained some of my needed items, two women were standing at the near end, both with shopping carts, facing opposite directions and talking together. I stood for at least a full minute, hoping to get into that aisle. Both women looked directly at me without breaking their conversation, but paid no attention to the fact that I was waiting. Their body language made it clear that they weren’t going to give way to anyone else. These weren’t kids – they were somewhere around middle age or a bit older.
What’s going on here? It isn’t outright rudeness. It’s something deeper. We’re not just distracted anymore. We are becoming less aware, less present, and less considerate. Attention has become scarce. Because of that, attention now functions as a form of care or affection. How should we feel about that?
The Everyday Blindness
You’ve seen it in some form, haven’t you? You’re walking along, and someone in front of you just stops suddenly. At a stoplight, you glance at the driver next to you and see them staring at their phone – or you pick yours up without thinking at every stoplight. People walk across the street while sending a message on the phone, or even just talking on the phone – no situational awareness at all! But even before phones, we’d often see people reading while they were walking along, pumping gas, or on a commute. It’s just gotten easier to retreat into something “not here.”
It’s not the phones alone, though. These incidents all indicate a shift in baseline behavior. It’s not odd anymore. I’m guilty myself; I keep my earbuds in while I’m in a store so I can catch up on my podcasts. But when I’m talking with someone, the earbuds come out of my ears, and we converse – hopefully in a place where we’re not blocking traffic. But with the earbuds in, am I signaling to others, “Don’t talk to me or engage me — I’m too busy for you”?
It’s Not Just “Kids These Days”
This is not a younger-generation problem, and we can’t pretend it is. I’ve seen plenty of adults using both hands to operate a phone keyboard while driving along an interstate. The example I opened with involved women close to my own age. Distraction and retreat are now cross-generational.
It’s probably true that technology has played a big part — smartphones that keep us connected at all times, constant pings and notifications, habit loops — they all contribute to a society whose members are no longer aware of a whole world going on all around them.
Attention Fragmentation
The insulation and retreat aren’t just physical phenomena. It’s invading our mental habits as well. Our attention is constantly interrupted by notifications, multitasking, and algorithm-driven social media feeds. What’s even worse, we’re training ourselves to skim, not engage. We’re constantly snacking, and never feasting.
The Death of Long-Form Thinking
If you’ve gotten this far, did you actually read all of each paragraph, or did you skim to get a pretty good idea of each one? If you’re actually reading, good for you! Most people now don’t even read articles — they think they can get what they need from the headlines. I’ve caught friends actually making up what they believe the article was about just from a headline. It’s gotten really difficult to absorb material, so we just skim it and trust we get enough from that.
What’s wrong with that? While there may not be any real immediate consequences, the results aren’t all that hard to see. We are becoming a society of shallow understanding. We’re reacting faster and reflecting less. I write long-form content for an audience I hope enjoys it, but I know fewer and fewer people will ever read one of these posts from beginning to end. The number of people who self-report reading more than three books a year is shrinking – and three books should be easy to read!
I put a lot of thought into every word I write. Then I go back and put more thought into them. Often, I read my own work three or four times before you ever see it. I’m not an unusual writer — most of us do that. If a writer puts that much care into the work they produce, we should put a lot more care into consuming it.
It’s not always easy, and I’ll be one of the first to admit it. I often have to make myself keep reading a long-form article. I’ve kept my subscription to a few digital magazines to ensure that I keep in practice. It’s also true that I don’t always enjoy writing long articles, especially if there’s something else I’d rather be doing.
The Restaurant Attention Test
We all see it in restaurants — tables full of people, each on their own device. At many tables, we see the occupants making minimal eye contact, and we can hear fragmented conversation. At one time, meals were a social opportunity, even in the home. They were an opportunity to break from the rest of life and engage with the people who mattered most. It was a time to catch up on the day and the news of each family member. Good and bad experiences were brought out, examined, and addressed.
Although not universal, it is now clear that the loss of shared attention is a common condition. Look at the faces of the people as they stare at their phones. Now find a table where the phones are absent — in pockets or purses, or face-down on the table. Notice the animation in the atmosphere. What’s happening on the faces — very often, if nobody’s laughing, it’s just a matter of time. But someone’s talking, and people are listening — enjoying not just the meal, but each other. Isn’t that something worth having?
Attention as Affection
Unfortunately, giving someone your full attention is now rare enough to be meaningful. Think of the people in your life who are very important to you. Are you capable of holding a conversation with them without checking your phone? That can be an even bigger challenge if they are telling a story.
Reading an article all the way through is a way of expressing that you find value in the effort the writer devoted to his work. They won’t know you read it completely, of course, unless you tell them. But if the headline or title grabs you enough to start reading, there’s probably something in most of the paragraphs to make it worth taking it to the end.
It is an act of simple civility to be aware of the others in your proximity, and we are lacking civility in many ways. Is someone following behind you as you exit a door? If you just let go of the door, will it slam them in the face? How long will it take to know that? Not long enough to justify not knowing.
We need civility now more than we ever have before. We need to model respect and care, and we need to receive it and insist on it, gently if possible. Paying attention to everyone in our vicinity is how we do that today.
Why it Matters
Does it matter? I mean, is anyone’s life really destroyed by having to find another way around a grocery aisle? Of course not. But does it matter? Of course it does.
Ignoring people around us reduces empathy and patience. Just try to get the attention of someone engrossed in a TikTok video, and you’ll see what I mean. But it also results in an obvious increase in friction in our everyday interactions. We’re shorter in our conversations, more abrupt in our exchanges.
It has a cognitive impact as well. Remember that part about having trouble staying with a long-form article to the end? That’s a real thing, and it’s growing. College students who can’t read an entire classic novel from beginning to end are one symptom. More people are finding it difficult to remain engaged with complex tasks, abandoning them or having to get help or stronger supervision to stay on-task.
We’re also seeing a subtle loss of connection — to people, to places, and to experiences. At more than one spectacular natural location, my husband and I have seen dozens of people walk up to the attraction, grab a selfie, and move on to the next thing, missing the opportunity to engage with the sound and spray of a rushing waterfall or that flash of green as the sun dips below the surface of the sea.
Small Corrections, Not Big Lectures
Have you noticed this in yourself? Or maybe you’re determined to do whatever you can to stave it off. I’m ready to take on a challenge. Will you join me? Let’s commit to these small things:
- Put the phone away during meals, unless you’re actually sharing something with someone at the table.
- Pause and notice your surroundings in public spaces.
- Read a whole article before reacting to it. (Sometimes we save the good stuff till the end :D)
- Emphasize awareness instead of perfection
I’m willing to try.
Your Turn
Remember that grocery store moment at the beginning? I’ll freely admit that my reaction wasn’t my finest moment, but even my over-exuberant “That’s okay, we’ll just enter this aisle from the other end” didn’t prompt either of the women to move. My family is good about keeping the phones away during dinner, though. It was a rule we enforced when our kids first got cell phones, but now we all just do it because we’d rather pay attention to each other than to anything on our phones.
I’d like to hear your experiences with fragmented attention, either in yourself or something you’ve observed. Is it something you struggle with? How do you manage it? Post your responses in the comments below, and thanks for making it all the way to the end!
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