Why Can't I Focus? On Email, Smartphones, and the Age of Distraction

Our attention has become fragmented. At work, the demands of email and Slack are constant, while at home the many appealing apps on our phones continue their diversionary onslaught. In this talk, Georgetown computer science professor and bestselling author Cal Newport will draw from his three most recent books, Deep Work (2016), Digital Minimalism (2019), and A World Without Email (2021), to examine the critical collisions of technology and society that led us into this current Age of Distraction. He will then leverage this nuanced understanding of how new tools upended our relationship with our own attention to explore the types of solutions that work. Sponsored by Sanford School of Public Policy. For questions about this event, please contact sanfordevents@duke.edu.