Calculus lecture. Friday, 10 a.m. –
I’m trying to pay attention, but I keep nodding off. I glance around at my fellow classmates also trapped in the basement (read: dungeon) of Olsson — which smells like mold and is always at least 20 degrees colder than outside — to see if they are faring any better.
The guy next to me is checking up on his fantasy football stats — not doing so well. The girl in front of me is pinning a recipe for avocado egg rolls, which look heavenly, especially considering the particularly bad week O-Hill has had.
Some girl a few rows in front of me is doing the whole I’m-just-scratching-my-leg-but-actually-texting maneuver. At least she’s making some effort to be discreet. A notorious overachiever is already working on the homework for next week. There’s also a kid on the other side of the room blatantly snoring. Now that I think about it, I’m not entirely sure he’s even in this class.
I find myself tempted to whip out my iPhone and check my Facebook, email, Twitter, Instagram and every other possible social network to avoid actually paying attention.
This is the world today: we are living in a state of constant distraction.
I’ve noticed this has become more and more of a problem for me as I’ve gotten older. When I was little I used to be able to lose myself in a good book for hours. Now, whenever I try to read, I find myself distracted, fighting the impulse to look at the clock or my phone, or to check to see how many pages I have left.
Its not enough for me to simply watch Breaking Bad — I have to simultaneously play Candy Crush or scroll through my Twitter feed. Two screens are always better than one.
We live in a world where speed is everything, where we have already moved onto the next thing before we have even finished what we are doing now. As soon as I update my phone, there is a better, faster one already available. Stores have been selling Halloween candy since August — not that I’m complaining.
Our devices start to control us, prevent us from ever really focusing on one thing. We can’t read deeply any more, because we’re used to glancing at 140-character fragments of thought and doing 50 things at once. If something isn’t shoved down our throats quickly enough, we don’t even bother.
The problem with this is that we are never really in the present, because all we can think about is what else we could be doing, our minds already on to the next situation before it has even happened.
Sometimes, it’s important to slow down, to put down the iPhone and four different assignments and application and laptop and whatever else and just be here. Be in the present and actually listen to your own thoughts. Pay attention to the people around you. Stop trying to do a million things adequately and do one thing exceptionally.
Abby’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at a.teitgen@cavalierdaily.com.
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