Attention: Modern technology has gained control

May I please have your attention? It’s yours to give, after all. To a point. Very often, it is taken from you — like I just have. As a writer, I face the challenge of keeping your attention before you decide to take it back and redirect it or before it is taken by another attention-seeking agent, human or otherwise.

I nd myself getting worn down and out by the incessant barrage of stimuli thrown at me. Some of it is benign, like the signal telling me the water I heat to brew a cup of tea is boiling. But a lot of attention grabbers are not so nice. Like spam calls, online ads and system failures interrupting my internet connection. Modern technological devices and systems have gained control, and while they facilitate communication, they also own us.

It began with the ringing telephone. Like Pavlov’s dogs, we learned to respond to the ding-aling and even salivate at its chiming. It became like church bells tolling the onset of services. Who might be calling? Someone was demanding our attention, and we needed to give it to them.

In those ancient times, it was almost always a personal call. But then Madison Avenue, expanding from print ads to telemarketing calls, went to work on invading that space. Today, unwanted calls are on steroids. We have coined terms for them: spam and robocalls. ey

JERRY FABYANIC

have become hideously unnerving, the occasional one even threatening, loaded with shrill screaming that the IRS is about to come after you.

Attention-grabbing has a deleterious e ect on our mental health. Wonder why you nd yourself grouchy at times? Perhaps you need to look no further than your cell phone with its alerts. Do you have a compulsion bordering on addiction to scroll through your phone or computer for the latest social media contacts and updates? at might also contribute to grouchiness.

ese attention grabbers clutter and pollute our minds with extraneous, demanding, trivial or useless energy-sucking information, and we don’t allow space for our brains to detach and rest. ink back to the many times you checked your cell phone for IMs, scrolled Facebook or watched a video in lieu of doing something unfettered and free. Time spent unfettered and free was kid time when I was growing up. It included romping, frolicking and carefree abandonment of reality. Outdoor games. Climbing a tree. Swinging on a bull rope. Sledding down a hill. Rolling down a hill. Wearing out trouser knees. Getting a cut or bruise and coping with it. Dealing with a bully. Breaking some rules. Raiding a neighbor’s garden or fruit trees and absconding with delicious, healthy bounty. Or just lazing, lying on the grass and dreamily imagining what shapes the cumulus clouds formed themselves into. e strictures we impose on ourselves directly short-circuit the creative aspect of the psyche. Not only does the brain need a time-out from the seriousness of life, so does the spirit. It needs time to imagine and create.

How often do you see kids playing outdoors without adult supervision? Playtime has now become guided, organized and disciplined. It’s no longer about play. Instead, it’s become the complete opposite of Calvinball. at is true for both kids and adults.

We bemoan the frightful intrusion of unwanted interruptions in our lives, but the truth is, we invite them in and create the environment in which they can thrive. e food we eat that overstimulates us, our poor sleep habits, and the lack of true playtime all aid and abet the decline of our spirit and attitude. No wonder so many people are pissed o at so many others.

In large part, we are to blame for our unhappiness. Just as Julius Caesar told Brutus that the fault lies in ourselves and not the stars, our unhappiness often lies in our willingness to allow other people and nonhuman agents to control our lives by seizing our attention.

Every teacher has likely told their students to pay attention or pointedly asked them, “Are you paying attention?”

One great answer a distracted, bored, disinterested student could give is, “No, I wasn’t, but I am, at least for the moment, now that you’ve taken it.”

Rather than unload on the truthful student, a wise teacher could respond, “I hear you. I’m that way when I’m bored to tears at faculty meetings.”

In days of yore, there was no need to make “me time.” It was generally the rule, especially in rural areas. For rural folks, cabin fever could be a serious malady. One antidote or elixir for it was a trek into town to connect and socialize with others.

Today the opposite has become the case. Urban and suburban dwellers now seek the cabin to escape the barrage of attention grabbers that incessantly yank and tug at them. Unfortunately, many people self-sabotage their e orts by toting along the instruments that keep them wired to the chaos from which they ostensibly crave to separate. For those folks, it ironically explains the old maxim that there is no rest for the weary.

Jerry Fabyanic is the author of “Sisyphus Wins” and “Food for ought: Essays on Mind and Spirit.” He lives in Georgetown.