Episode 192: Distracted, or, How to be Attentive

Anyone who has been in a classroom in the last 25 years has heard someone—perhaps themselves—worry about the effects of “digital distraction” on students’ attention span–perhaps even on their minds. In the 90's there were arguments about whether professors should allow laptops for note-taking, which now seems very quaint. Now we’re wondering if Zoom turns us into Zombies. (Or should that be Zoombies?) My guest Jim Lang has written a book that takes that fretful conversation in a different direction. Rather than worrying about distraction, he argues that we should be increasing our students’ (and children’s) ability to properly attend to things. James M. Lang is Professor of English and director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts . Among is previous books is Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning. His most recent book is Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It.