Distracted: Staying Connected without Losing Focus

What are the benefits and negative consequences of our increased connectivity at school, at work, and at home? Is being constantly distracted now a worldwide problem? This book examines how new technologies and social pressures have changed the way we use our attention, and the extent to which they drive us to distraction, by interpreting hundreds of scientific studies from the literatures in cognitive and social psychology, sociology, communication, management, and decision making.

• Offers a comprehensive and insightful understanding of how technology use in daily life affects our attention, our work performance, and our relationships

• Describes how to get and keep the attention of others in a distracted, mobile-device enabled world

• Explains benefits of multitasking as well as how it limits our abilities to process information and make good decisions

• Addresses the connections between constantly being distracted and trying to multitask to the near crisis-level trend of unused vacation time in America and explains why this phenomenon hurts everyone