Albert Camus had famously said that the twentieth century was a “century of fear.” Today, he could very well have called the 21st century as a century of distraction. Technology has stolen our focus and our devices have hijacked our attention. Modern gadgets that we use daily are indeed invasive forces having a bearing on our concentration.

The younger people are more distracted. A recent study conducted by the Centre for Attention Studies, King’s College, London, has found that 49 per cent of the 2000 adults surveyed admitted that their attention span was shorter. Almost an equal number of adults agreed that deep thinking was now a thing of the past. Earlier the unsaid and the unsayable often said much more than the written and said words.

Literature had a passion for silence. We are now living in an epoch where we have ceased to enjoy a moment of silence. Without silence, we have lost our freedom to listen to ourself. This is what technology of distraction has done. As media critic John Culkin says, “we shape our tools. Thereafter our tools shape us.” Sweden, Britain and France have banned mobiles in schools. They are returning to printed books.

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We are filling the classrooms with weapons of mass distraction. Joe Clement and Matt Miles in their book ‘Screen Schooled’ argue that early use of mobiles and laptops has impaired critical thinking. Screen saturation at home and school has created a wide range of cognitive and social deficits in the young minds. No wonder some of Silicon Valley leaders have put their children in technology-free schools. The millennials and Gen Zers are also suffering from a rising level of narcissism. In........

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