‘Distracted’ Author Tackles Technology vs. Humans

The impact of technology on our daily lives is captured in this year’s common reading for the McAnulty College, Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age.

Author and award-winning journalist Maggie Jackson tackled technology head-on during a Nov. 7 standing-room-only crowd at the Power Center. “Are we expecting too much from our technology?” Jackson asked.

“We have oceans of information at our fingertips, yet we seek knowledge in Yahoo! headlines glimpsed on the run. We are networked as never before, but we connect with friends and family via email and fleeting face-to-face moments that are rescheduled a dozen times,” Jackson wrote. “Welcome to the land of distraction.”

Jackson challenged her audience to consider technology’s effects on our daily lives. “Tools matter; humans matter more,” she said.

At the end of Jackson’s lecture, she took questions from the group, led by essay winners of the McAnulty College’s Residential Learning Communities essay contest:

• Kaitlyn Craig, Orbis, Technology Takeover
• Sean Lawrence, Populus, Big Brother Is Watching You
• Shannon Small, Narratio, Living Connected to Oneself, Others and One’s Cellphone—Yes, Maggie Jackson, It Is Possible.

Jackson’s visit was made possible from a gift from the family of John “Jack” Doherty, an alumnus of the College.