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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.733
EAN: 9781594202100
ISBN: 1594202109
Label: Penguin Press HC, The
Manufacturer: Penguin Press HC, The
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: April 16, 2009
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Studio: Penguin Press HC, The
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Amazon Exclusive: Winifred Gallagher on Rapt
 A wise research psychiatrist once told me that he had identified life's greatest problem: How to balance self and others, or your need for independence with your need for relationship? Since writing Rapt, I've come to believe that we now face a fundamental psychological challenge of a different sort: How to balance your need to knowâfor the first time in history, fed by a bottomless spring of electronic information, from e-mail to Wikipedia--with your need to be? To think your thoughts, enjoy your companions, and do your work (to say nothing of staring into a fire or gazing dreamily at the sky) without interruption from beeps, vibrations, and flashing lights? Or perhaps worse, from the nagging sense that when you're off the grid, you're somehow missing out?
Science's new understanding of attention can help shape your answers to this question, which pops up all day long in various forms. When you sit at your computer, will you focus on writing that report or aimless web browsing? At the meeting, will you attend to the speaker or to your BlackBerry? Research suggests that your choices are more consequential than you may suspect. When you zero in on a sight or sound, thought or feeling, your brain spotlights and depicts that "target," which then becomes part of the subjective mental construct that you nonetheless confidently call "reality" or "the world." In contrast, things that you ignore don't, at least with anything like the same clarity. As William James succinctly puts it, "My experience is what I agree to attend to."
The realization that your lifeâindeed, yourself--largely consists of the physical objects and mental subjects that you've focused on, from e-bay bargains to world peace, becomes even more sobering when you consider that, as the expression "pay attention" suggests, like your money, your concentration is a finite resource. How can you get the highest experiential return for this cognitive capital? By focusing on some screen or on playing your guitar? On IM-ing your old friend or joining her for a walk?
Considering the Internet's countless temptations and distractions, deciding how best to invest your time and attention when you're online is particularly challenging. Left to its own devices, your involuntary, "bottom-up" attention system asks, "What's the most obvious, compelling thing to zero in on here? That e-mail prompt? This colorful ad?" Fortunately, evolution has also equipped you with a voluntary, "top-down" attention system that poses a different question: "What do you want to focus on right now? Ordering that new novel, then checking the weather report, then getting back to work, right?" Sometimes, it's fun to just wander around online, allowing your mind to be captured by random, bottom-up distractions. In general, however, it's far more productive to focus on top-down targets you've selected to create the kind of experience you want to invite.
Along with making clear choices about what things merit your precious attention online, there are some other simple ways to protect the quality of your daily life from technological interference. Remember that your electronics are your servants, not your masters, and don't let them choose your focus for you. Abandon vain attempts to "multitask," because when you try to attend to two things at onceâphoning while checking e-mailâyou're simply switching rapidly between them, which takes longer and generates more errors. When you need to concentrate on an important activity, try to work for 90 minutes without interruptions, because rebooting your brain can take up to 20 minutes.
Most important, as you go about the day, bear in mind that by taking charge of your attention, you improve your experience, increase your concentration, and lift your spirits. Best of all, enjoying the rapt state of being completely absorbed, whether by a website or a sunset, a project or a person, simply makes life worth living. We cannot always be happy, but we can almost always be focused, which is as close as we can get.
Product Description:
Winifred Gallagher revolutionizes our understanding of attention and the creation of the interested life
In Rapt, acclaimed behavioral science writer Winifred Gallagher makes the radical argument that the quality of your life largely depends on what you choose to pay attention to and how you choose to do it. Gallagher grapples with provocative questionsCan we train our focus? Whats different about the way creative people pay attention? Why do we often zero in on the wrong factors when making big decisions, like where to move?driving us to reconsider what we think we know about attention.
Gallagher looks beyond sound bites on our proliferating BlackBerries and the increased incidence of ADD in children to the discoveries of neuroscience and psychology and the wisdom of home truths, profoundly altering and expanding the contemporary conversation on attention and its power. Sciences major contribution to the study of attention has been the discovery that its basic mechanism is an either/or process of selection. That we focus may be a biological necessity research now proves we can process only a little information at a time, or about 173 billion bits over an average lifebut the good news is that we have much more control over our focus than we think, which gives us a remarkable yet underappreciated capacity to influence our experience. As suggested by the expression pay attention, this cognitive currency is a finite resource that we must learn to spend wisely. In Rapt, Gallagher introduces us to a diverse cast of charactersartists and ranchers, birders and scientistswho have learned to do just that and whose stories are profound lessons in the art of living the interested life. No matter what your quotient of wealth, looks, brains, or fame, increasing your satisfaction means focusing more on what really interests you and less on what doesnt. In asserting its groundbreaking thesisthe wise investment of your attention is the single most important thing you can do to improve your well-beingRapt yields fresh insights into the nature of reality and what it means to be fully alive.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Rapt is like a New Yorker article writ large. Gallagher summarizes scientific studies in rapid fire and draws sweeping conclusions from cobbled-together hypotheses. Her basic conclusions, reiterated throughout the book, are that: Paying close attention to good things will make you happier and healthier; Meditation is a great way to both improve attentional capacity (so you can get work done, or whatever) and to actually focus on good things; And Asians are better than Westerners at just about everything; But the Japanese are not--partly because of Manga.
None of her conclusions are particularly startling. And the studies she cites are ones you have probably already seen in the science section of your favorite news weekly. But I still think unless you study this subject professionally or have just finished a book of this same nature, Rapt is worth reading.
Although her premises are sometimes weak, and her conclusions are often over-broad, Gallagher accomplishes what she set out to do--I think--which is to bring complex ideas down to easy-to-grasp-though-sometimes-fuzzy level. For its simplicity and simplistic profundity, I enjoyed reading Rapt. And while I wouldn't propose citing it in your thesis, I found it to be a nice reminder of the power of the mind, the usefulness of mediation, and overall a well-written reflection on what really matters in life.
Rating:  -
This is an excellent book if you are interested in how people pay attention. It summarizes the research in a way that is both understandable and engaging. I highly recommend it.
Rating:  -
This is a fine book for those who are starting to learn about attention.
On another note, one aspect missing from most attention study in general is that attention can work two-ways at the same time. Most of us have our attention "focused" on the external world (including thoughts, body) without any of our attention on ourselves. An alternative is to split ones attention. To accomplish this imagine an archer pulling back the bow string, you are pulling back part of your attention to focus on yourself while at the same time focusing on the external.
Rating: -
I looked forward to reading this. The publisher's blurbs suggested it would be a synthesis of the great thinkers about the psychology of self with modern insights.
In truth, it is simply another one of the faddish pop psychology and business books flooding the market, like those by Malcolm Gladwell, Chris Long and others. Lots of fluff and little substance.
Here, Gallagher takes the profound insights of William James in particular and attempts to mold them to the contemporary age. The reality is that the words and wisdom of William James have withstood the test of time and do not need the support or even interpretation of Gallagher.
A quote from William James begins the book: "My experience is what I agree to attend to". Ralph Waldo Emerson's transcendentalist philosophy is also recited as is the contemporary Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi ("Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life").
Bottom line: life is what you focus on. Life is what you think it is. If you think you are unhappy, you will be unhappy.
Ultimately, "Rapt" is nothing more than a large selection of classic advice buttressed by a scientific study here, the Dalai Lama there. It is an increasingly worn formula.
Anyone who hasn't read William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson or some of the other greats, will find new information here. But those who have previously studied the psychology of self won't.
Jerry
Rating:  -
As someone who is interested in improving my personal productivity, I chanced upon this book after looking at Amazon. The book was a disappointment. Key Takeaways from the book who can decide if they still want to invest in the book,
1. There are two types of attention, Top-Down (What do you want to concentrate on?) and Bottom-Up (what's the obvious thing to home in on here?)
2. Attention is a zero sum game.
3. Focus on the positives vs. negatives. Refer to How of Happiness for more practical way to internalize it.
4. Take Mike Posner's Attention Network Test to check your current baseline
5. Meditation or just spending time in solitude is great for concentration. No practical ways to implement this.
6. Learn to listen well and not project your opinions. Also observe how your partner handles good news vs. bad news. Learn to accept that you can be vulnerable, your partner will cherish that.
The author writes in tangential style, citing references in the middle of making a point and never inferring an actionable conclusion. I would advise book lovers who want to improve their concentration to refer to Prof's Csikszentmihalyi book if you want to learn something practical.
Your un-rapted book reader,
Fred
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