On Becoming An Individual In An Age Of Distraction

In a time where technology is advancing beyond what we, as people, could ever imagine. We are at a point, where the hoverboards and flying cars from Back to the Future 2, are within our grasp. With technology advancing at a rate that is faster than almost any car can go, does that leave us lagging behind? Technology has become one of the biggest factors in defining what people will become and that is an advanced society that is not able to do the most basic things. What is meant by basic are things like listening, paying attention and other things. Matthew B. Crawford showed this in the introduction of his book The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction.

One of the first things that foreshadow what Crawford

His point is that our attention is being affected by different stimuli from all around us. Crawford also brings in different theories from psychology and sociology. From psychology, he brings how one

How did we learn that? How do things with bright screens and can hurt our eyes, keep our gaze for so long? Is that a problem? When does our individuality become wrapped up in a world bigger than ourselves? Many people will argue that they have maintained their self-control when it comes to technology. Self-control is a person’s ability to control their own self. Their emotions, needs, wants, and behavior is just a handful of things that a person can control, but there is always the chance that a want will become a need or a specific emotion becomes how a person behaves. This applies to almost everything, but in this moment it is going to be applied to technology. Before getting too far, the advancement of technology is one of the most beneficial things to happen to the human race. The uses are from the simplest things, like using Microsoft Paint, to the most advanced thing like programming. We have put people on the moon, developed faster ways of transportation, given nearly unlimited access to an unlimited amount of information and given different ways for people to connect with others. All of this has been with different technologies and dates back to the Industrial Revolution with steam power. That being said, people have been affected more than just extreme