Continuous Partial Attention

Paradox of the Book

The chaos of the Internet makes reading easier.

OCT 21, 2013

For all of us, but especially for Generation X and Y sorts, a sustained and quiet read is harder to get than ever. The nagging, omnipresent digital media have produced a version of the Attention Deficit Disorder that psychologists began identifying in children decades ago: Continuous Partial Attention (CPA). A former Apple employee, Linda Stone, coined the term in 1998, differentiating it from multitasking, or the pairing of a “fairly automatic” activity, such as eating lunch, with one requiring concentration, such as making a phone call. CPA results from “a desire not to miss anything,” to be plugged into sources keeping us “in the know” and, artificially, at high alert. Between smartphone, laptop, e-reader, Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube, says novelist Walter Kirn, we’re like the “stiff-backed lady operators” in old movies, “rapidly swapping phone jacks from hole to hole as they connect Chicago to Miami, reporter to city desk, businessman to mistress.”