Arthur Boers, Living Into Focus: Choosing What Matters in an Age of Distraction (2012)
This is home-base for discussion on chapter 5 and following. Chapter 6 is a doozy; should be an interesting discussion.
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I’m going to start posting on chapter 6 Tuesday morning. Chapter 5 is really just an outline of what follows it.
I’ve enjoyed the book tremendously and have already made a couple of resolutions. One is that I am going to spend more time outside; another is that I am going to start forcing myself into some technology ‘fasts’ (as Boers calls them). I will make a post on this in the future, so you don’t have to comment now, but I am curious, as we move along, to see your ideas for things that we can change in our lives to help us live into focus.
I also wanted to note that I had a few hangups about some of Boers recommendations. First, the idea of praying with the help of icons is highly offensive to this Protestant mind (and it seems counterintuitive to me in relation to prayer). Second, I do not share his love for monasticism (I’ve written a good deal about that in the past). There are several other things, but they don’t really impact how I feel about the book. I just want to be clear that I don’t endorse all of Boers’ positions. But, hey, if I endorsed everything I read, I would probably never finish a book. And if I was only reading things that reinforced my own beliefs, what would the point of reading be?
I also do not appreciate everything Boers says. Monasticism certainly seems contrary to living as “the Body of Christ.” He also feels very strongly that cell phones shouldn’t be used in cars, which is a current issue that agitates me to no end. (I just think it is a scapegoat for all our other multi-tasking we do in the car ((eating, messing with the radio, looking at billboards, thinking about work, daydreaming, etc)), and one that blatantly ignores such obvious extensions of its own logic such as “if talking on the phone is too distracting for a driver as a wooden rule, how about simply talking to a passenger? Should we all take a vow of silence when riding in the car?” The real trouble with phones is that the exhortation needs to be to not get so caught up in the conversation that you don’t realize what you are doing. It is an issue of “degree of involvement”. But how do we measure that? How do we determine fault in a wreck if that is the issue? Makes it harder to make laws, and determine who’s insurance must pay, or who to be mad at… But I digress.)
Yes, not everything Boers says is excellent. I think the more excellent a person’s writing is, the more offensive their failures seem to be. When one learns to eat, one learns to “chew the meat and spit out the bones.” I think we must do that with reading. That is discernment. However, if our meal appears to be a boneless chicken breast, and we bite into a bone, we are far more offended than if we expected it to be a bone-in chicken breast.
Thanks for asking your readers about their own resolutions. Just being asked, helps motivate me to articulate for myself what I think.
“I spend considerable time running, scurrying, and hasting to no apparent end. I do not spare enough time to carefully discern or set priorities or align actions with my values.”
-Ch 5 Pg 68 Par 3
“The issue is not technology itself but the reality that we often do not reflect on how we are affected and formed by our use of it.”
-Ch 5 Pg 69 Par 5
“Too often our interactions with technology follow a predictable trajectory: because it is available we use it, then we think it is normal, and finally we expect or even demand that others employ it as well.”
-Ch 5 Pg. 71 Par 3
There’s a line laterr in the book that puts this more poignantly, but it’s amazing how technology can bring out technological prejudices and demands.
“It is easy to find ourselves in the predicament Martin Luther King Jr long ago described: ‘We have allowed our technology to outrun our theology.'”
-Ch5 Pg 69 Par 5
I’m glad you posted that. I underlined it with a note to check out the original context of the quote and haven’t done it yet. If it’s interesting, I’ll report on it.
“Does planned and perceived obsolescence contribute to eroding commitments?”
-ch 5 pg 74 par 2
This question reminded me of one aspect I see in the fashion industry today, (which I am vocationally involved in,) where we make clothing to be disposable. At first thought, one might think that making a t-shirt that pills, unravels, and fades quickly would destine your company to fail, if not atleast gouge one’s price-point capacity. This however is not the observable case. Consumers don’t care that their clothing falls to pieces. They actually like this. It means that they have an excuse to go out and buy MORE clothing, sooner, and in greater quantity. It is win-win for everyone. The company doesn’t want to have to give much of itself to the consumer, and the consumer doesn’t want to have to care for their garment, think through their decisions, and practice contentment. Both sides have eroded the commitments involved with the practice.
Speaking of contentment (since we’ve discussed that a bit), I had the idea that at some point we could read through The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, by Jeremiah Burroughs: http://www.amazon.com/Jewel-Christian-Contentment-Jeremiah-Burroughs/dp/1878442287
That sounds great! I think my wife and I will rest our involvement in this reading group for a week or two after this book is done. I need to give her time to finish “Till We Have Faces.” After that, we would be game to get into another one of these kinds of book-blog-discussion projects.
(FYI:I would point out that the negative reviewers on your Amazon link all say that that edition is printed in such a way that is difficult to read, and they recommend buying from a different publisher.)
I have to be off here for the rest of the night, but a last comment. Please rest as long as you want! Just tell me when you want to read something, even if it’s a year from now. If I can do it, I will.
Anyway, try this link: http://www.amazon.com/Rare-Jewel-Christian-Contentment/dp/0851510914/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1411613901&sr=1-1&keywords=the+rare+jewel+of+christian+contentment
I already have the book but haven’t given it a good reading. I have the Banner of Truth version (pictured at this link), and it seems fine.
“How does technology reinforce casual approaches to relationships, ones that are easy to enter or exit but do not necessarily sustain?”
-Ch 5 Pg 74 Par 3
This has described my experience with most church bible studies, small groups, home groups, or whatever you want to call intimate-setting gatherings of church people. They try hard to make it easy for people to enter, (because they won’t come otherwise…) and easy to exit, (and get home to see the football game on time.) These relationships don’t often sustain though. I left a group once, having been one of the most active participants in the group, and the group leader called me on the phone over 4 months later and said “Hey, we noticed you guys were not coming anymore. I was wondering why. Sorry to only just now be asking….um… I mean… things have just been so busy.” I could give alot of other examples.
“Dealing with technology is like paying attention to yellow lights… But just because there are different good choices does not mean these choices are unimportant or that all options are equal… Jesus once commended His followers to be clever as serpents and innocent as doves. We require both attributes when we think about technology.”
-Ch 5 Pg 77, 78
I really liked the ‘yellow light’ idea.
“My mother was present, though she was a conscientious housekeeper who usually had a lengthy list of pressing but unfinished tasks.” -Ch 6 Pg 80-81
I feel like this…like… always….
“There are spiritual stakes here. William McNamara vividly describes contemplation as ‘long, leisurely, loving looks at the real.’ Weil wrote: ‘Prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable toward God.'” -Ch 6 Pg 84
I definitely underlined those lines.
“Tom Vanderbilt notes that the more info one is faced with, the less respect and attention one gives…we all have limits to our ability to pay attention; it is a ‘finite resource.'”
-Ch 6 Pg 85
That one too. One of my favorites from the entire book.
“Finally, technologies over the last hundred years…give us a sense of the ability and right to control what we take in and see. We assume that if something does not keep our attention or amuse or please us, we can just go ahead and change ‘channels.'”
-Ch 6 Pg 86
“the more distracted we become, the less able we are to experience the subtlest, most distinctively human forms of empathy, compassion, and other emotions.”
-Ch 6 Pg 87
I have felt this in my life. Living fast and loud used to allow me to be cold, heartless, and disconnected toward others. I could end a relationship without sympathy or remorse, as long as the volume and mph of life stayed high.
“We need not settle for attenuated attention. Winifred Gallagher makes a case for choosing our focus, insisting that we have more control than we realize: ‘If you could just stay focused on the right things, your life would stop feeling like a reaction to stuff that happens to you and become something that you create: not a series of accidents but a work of art.'”
Gallagher would seem to be echoing Whitman here, who said in “Leaves of Grass” that one should “dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” (Hopefully Gallagher’s way of living out this idea is different from Whitmans…) I include this quote primarily to focus on the fact that we need not merely attend, but to learn what the RIGHT THINGS are that we must attend to, and what must go.
Amen to everything here.
“We cannot build deep and lasting relationships if we turn away from others the moment they become boring, irritating, or challenging. Neither cocktail party practices nor television-viewing habits are helpful for growing in friendship, intimacy, and love.”
-Ch 6 Pg 87
Interestingly, I’ve found that in church gatherings that are trying to be “intentional” about community, such a heavy emphasis is placed on “mingling” in hopes of curtailing the creation of clicks, that we end up with the very thing described above. The avoidance ethic lands us right in a different ditch than the one we were trying so hard to avoid. In such settings there sometimes even arises the “relationship police” who will rebuke you if you take off to the side with one or two people to have a more intimate discussion.
You just can’t have community without some sort of intimacy. And that means there are going to have to be times when a conversation will only involve two people: like a family: the fact that mom and dad spend time alone together does not take away from the family itself, it actually strengthens the family.
“Marva Dawn, relying on Neil Postman’s work, speaks of ‘L.I.A.R.,’ which stands for ‘Low Information-Action Ratio.’ Because we was media consumers receive news of problems we can do little about, we become calloused or debilitated by everything that we hear and know.” -Ch 6 Pg 86
This is such a huge problem in our culture today. It really buggers me. It brings up the question of “how much awareness/knowledge is enough?” How many news programs should I watch or read daily/weekly/monthly in order to feel like a “responsible citizen”? How do I become adequately aware of the reality of others living in the world around me and not become neurotically focused on all the “problems in the world” that I either want to run frantically to fix, or despair fatalistically about? How do I react to my friends and family who do not share the same feelings toward media ecology?
A while back I referenced Marshall McLuhan’s little cartoon from The Medium is the Massage that says “it’s not that I don’t like the news, it’s just that there’s so much of it” (or something to that effect). You can’t try to know everything that’s happening, nor should you: you’re not God.
The church is both universal and local. It allows for catholicity and locality. The primarily work of the church takes place within the local church. The catholic issues are brought up seldom, and usually during an emergency involving some sort of heresy.
That’s not a bad model for life. Proximity is important. If I have a friend (this actually happened) emailing me for money, and he lives 1,000 miles away, and I have a homeless man down the street, I give precedence to the homeless man. There are certain emergencies that transcend proximity, but probably not that many.
This is worth discussing further, and I believe Postman talked about it in Technopoly. I will look into it over the weekend.
“While we may feel better informed, there are consequences. Information overload affects us, our communities, and our society. We cannot take in everything that comes our way, and this adversely influences decision making. Messages arrive faster than we are able to process and this increases the difficulty we have for discerning choices.” -Ch 6 Pg 86
I immediately thought about Twitter when I read this. Twitter would seem to provide an excellent platform for fostering a sort of obsessive-compulsiveness with speaking. The ability to blurt little tid bits out, anytime, in any place, to EVERYONE. I remember when we were fascinated to speak to other people on A.I.M. Then it was “cool” to get on AIM and talk to multiple people at once. Somewhere down the line we got to text messages. Then we got to text-message blasting. I feel like Twitter came down the same pipe. Yet none of this, (and Twitter least of all,) fosters any solid digestion of the information we receive. It is all information fast food, and nothing but bad bowl movements can follow.
“Perhaps many people are now incapable of contemplative, slow-moving worship. I am unsure. And I am also deeply uneasy.” -Ch 6 Pg 85
More thought about how to remedy this is high on my agenda. Would love to hear thoughts here from anyone else interested.
“This all [compounding effects of media] contributes to what some call ‘continuous partial attention.’ (We’ll give more consideration to this in a later chapter when we look at multitasking.) Our focus shifts from one item to another, never settling anywhere too long.” – Ch 6 Pg 84
This reminded me of what basic knowledge we have of brain wave patterns. You have Alpha waves, Beta waves, Delta, and Theta. Recently they have also discovered “Gamma” waves, but I don’t know if they know much about them. (I believe that is the complete list. Been a bit since I studied this.) Beta waves are associated with heightened alertness, logic, critical reasoning, the ability to switch between multiple tasks, etc.
Relating back to ‘continuous partial attention’ caused by the compounding effects of media, we find that beta waves get stimulated strongly by the nature of our current media culture. We then get stuck in state of heightened alertness, anxiety, and even stuck in an ugly form of logical and critical thinking. We cannot get out, because our world is busily stimulating our brain to behave in this way.
Interestingly, we find that the “focal practices” of Boers tend to encourage the production of Alpha and Theta waves. These brain waves are associated with the ability to extend one’s attention, focus, memory, learning, inspiration, creativity, and insight.
“Television, for example, draws our awareness via glittering images that are easy to access and that addictively hold our gaze by altering rapidly… Television’s way of depicting stories is much different from watching a live play, an activity that invites us to focus deliberately… ‘The effect [of TV] is to lure your attention forward like a mechanical rabbit teasing the greyhound.’ Technology grows increasingly sophisticated, and TV producers now work harder at providing startling and dramatic perspective shifts. Television programs, commercials, and films are all speeding up.” -Ch 6 Pg 83
I rent children’s movies from our local library for my sons to watch, who are both toddlers. The other day I rented a LEGO movie, based off the fact that people keep making a big deal out of how great their films are. I was surprised to discover recently how well the’ve done in the box office. I never thought anyone would be interested in watching a representation of a representation of people, but I digress.
I rented a LEGO movie called “Chima”. It was so bad, I don’t really wan’t to even get into it. I only bring it up because one of its most odorous qualities was how sped-up the program was. Since it was targeted toward modern children, the creators obviously felt that they needed to turn things up a notch. There were almost zero segways. It felt like I was watching one massive movie trailer. It was dizzying. It was so bad, I almost wanted to bring people over to see it, just as witness to the horror.
I’ve also rented old-er movies for my kids like Disney’s “Fox and Hound,” which has along introduction with credits. This NEVER happens in kids movies today, and yet for its time this was acceptable.
Yikes.
“‘Idolatry’ is a problem of directing reverence and regard in the wrong direction.” -Ch 6 Pg 82
“One of the most significant challenges of contemporary technology is how it shapes our awareness, where it attracts our attention, and the ways that it sometimes-perhaps even often- draws us away from the things we value most.”
-Ch 6 Pg 81
I’ve had vendors come into Dallas to tour stores that were from all over the USA and the world. Alot of them are from distinctly beautiful places, like Boulder, Colorado, and during the time I am driving them around town I often ask them about their experiences back home.
During such conversations, I always note that Dallas too has a natural beauty. But, I tell them, don’t ask Dallas where that beauty is. The people cannot tell you. They are not interested in it. They have not been able to pave over it all yet, but they don’t know where it is. They may even have a vague appreciation for natural beauty, but they’ll only become aware of it when it comes in a series of flicker photos, or when they’ve spent a bunch of money to travel to some distant beach or mountain. Even there, the sense, I gather, is still vague.
The people of my city are content with ignoring nature for the majority of their life. In Dallas, we have a culture that has very much allowed business technologies to shape our awareness, attract our attention, and even draw us away from the things we value most. Nature is just one of those things.
“Many people argue that technology is neutral. It all depends, they say, on how you use it and who is using it…But…The overwhelming influence and direction of much technology is not neutral…much of technology is driven by an explicit agenda…Many recent devices attenuate, even eliminate, community standards and mores at an astonishing rate… This tearing down of taboos is not an accidental by product; it is intrinsic to the kinds of technology that we develop, promote, and employ.”
-Ch 7 Pg 96, 97
I would like to point out that people talking about tech having to do with “who is using it” and “how you use it” is another way of getting at a question of motive and context of technology. The failure made by people is in realizing when context or motive has been made intrinsic for a device, and is not left to choice. Perhaps an even more profound failure is found in missing how a technology doesn’t control motive or context but is STRONGLY PERSUASIVE in advocating a particular motive or context by the nature in how it has been designed or presented.
That is a good way of putting the idea of Media Ecology. Technologies produce environments that affect us. Like a nearby beach is conducive to swimming. You don’t have to swim, but the environment sure suits it.
Boers brings up Phil 4:8. (pg99) to caution us to not submit ourselves to debauchery so casually as many of us do. He also brings up Ps 191:3 and 119:7. I think these are great verses to consider in relation to what we allow ourselves to marinate upon. After this, he tells an anecdotal story about an Amish man explaining to a busload of “regular folk” what the difference is between his people and “others”.
Upon first inspection, the idea that the Amish are willing to act upon their conviction is stimulating. However, after further thought, I came to consider how there is a certain “avoidance ethic” at work in this very proactive model of conservation that I am unwilling to abide by. I am reminded here of Andre Gide, who said “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” This is the sacrifice being avoided by many Amish, etc.
This is demonstrable of my main issue with the “Old Order” groups: in trying to respond to new problems in the world, they often simply try to run from the issues. It is easy to move from “thoughtful abstention” to “thoughtless flight” from an issue. Furthermore, by doing this, you may not have addressed the heart issues at work here at all. In this way, one can easily become engaged in prodigious gnat-straining and camel-swollowing.
This is also my main issue with conventional moderns, in the opposite direction. Often in trying to “address the issue” they just swallow gnats AND camels indescriminantly. It is easy here to move from “thoughtful exploration” to “thoughtless acceptance.”
My main concern here is to point out that there is a time and place for exposing ourselves to new ideas and even to evil itself, (ie:we have to fight it…) but that the question of when and how is still very much related to motive and context. I wan’t to affirm the discretion of the Old Order world, as well as the explorative nature of the Moderns. The two ideas need to be married.
I know this is overly simplistic, but all I want people to do (including myself) is actually think. Think. Discernment (a form of thinking to be sure) does not simply mean abstaining. It is simply a Christian form of thoughtfulness/wisdom.
“This deserves discussion and discernment. It is not just that these technologies promote pornograpy; but often pornography is also a major factor in their financial success. Other major forces propelling the success of the internet are advertising, gambling, and easy shopping- none of which can boast of building character.” -Ch 7 Pg 101
This reminded me of a comedic film, which I would recommend, called “The TV Set”.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3kracm6dII
I finally got ahold of this movie. I enjoyed it and thought it was a great piece of satire. Thanks for the recommendation – it definitely made this point.
Hahaha. Glad you liked it. It didn’t make a very big splash in theaters unfortunately. It really assuaged my frustrations with film when I saw it. It now helps to assuage my frustrations within a wider context of culture. I wish there were more comedies like this, rather than those of the “National Lampoon” persuasion….
“Jacques Ellul bluntly states his opinion that television shatters the taboos, and creates the public need for shows of this kind. When people argue that the television industry is simply responding to the public taste and demand, they forget to add that this demand is the creation of television. Television is responsible for the kind of general creation of television. Television is responsible for the kinds of general climate of which violence and eroticism are a part.” -Ch7 pg 100-101
This brings up a classic debate over who is controlling market development- regardless of the product. Some say the public “demanded it” and the product was thus created, others say that companies create demand FOR their product. I would say both are true, to varying degrees at different times, and that those who wan’t to polarize the answer are often looking for a way to shift blame.
I agree.
“Yet computer games remove us from reality and morality. They teach us the attractions of causing pain without recognizing responsibility or consequences.” -Ch 7 Pg 102-103
I would love to discuss the validity and ramifications of this idea more.
Let’s discuss it at some point. I’ll make a post.
“The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage.” -Ps 16:6
“…the idea of limits goes right back to the start, to a God who made heaven and earth, beast and man, and then decided that it was all enough and STOPPED.” -Bill McKibben Ch 7 Pg 106
Sabbath and stopping is tough in this day and age. I suppose it’s always been tough, but we have so many options.
I read a Chesterton essay a while back in which he talked about the ‘blessedness of self-limitation.’ He said kids understand it well when they decide to make the couch into a boat. My kids do it when we go to the store and they will only walk on one color of the checkerboard tile. We need a healthy sense of the beauty of limitation.
“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” -Philippians 4:8
I wish more sermons expounded upon these things. I’m happy to hear sermons that exposit our failures, and other negative realities of The Fall, but I wish we payed more attention to this verse…
Amen.
“Albert Borgmann says something similar: ‘Television is just like making a hole in the wall… All kinds of stuff comes in, on the screen, that we would never allow to come in through the door.'”
-Ch 7 Pg 100
“Connectivity becomes a craving; when we receive a text or an e-mail, our nervous system responds by giving us a shot of dopamine. We are stimulated by the connectivity itself. We learn to require it, even as it depletes us.” -Ch 7 Pg 104
This statement really struck me. I had never considered the biological involvement in our technical encounters.
It is interesting. There’s an interesting book I read a while back called ‘The Tyranny of Email’ that made the point that we get a mini-buzz from repeatedly checking our email. I also remember years ago watching the movie ‘You’ve got mail.’ It makes the point a bit more tangible.