Metadata
- Author: Joshua Rothman
- Full Title:: A New Theory of Distraction
- Category:: 🗞️Articles
- Document Tags:: Happiness,
- URL:: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/a-new-theory-of-distraction
- Finished date:: 2024-08-17
Highlights
In 1903, the German sociologist Georg Simmel argued, in an influential essay called “The Metropolis and Mental Life,” that in the tech-saturated city “stimulations, interests, and the taking up of time and attention” turn life into “a stream which scarcely requires any individual efforts for its ongoing.” (In the countryside, you have to entertain yourself.) (View Highlight)
Much of “The World Beyond Your Head” is about people who do work to which they can’t help but pay attention: short-order cooks, hockey players, motorcycle racers, glassblowers. (View Highlight)