1. The little girl’s head only came up to her mother’s waist as she hugged her mum, and held on fiercely as they rode a ferry to a holiday island. The mother, though, didn’t respond to her, or even seem to notice: she was absorbed in her tablet computer all the while.
2. Something similar happened a few minutes later, as I was getting into a shared taxi van with nine students who that night were journeying to a weekend getaway. Within a minute of taking their seats in the dark van, dim lights came on as every one of them checked a phone or tablet. A few words were occasionally muttered while they texted or looked through social media pages. But mostly there was silence.
3. Digital interaction comes at a cost in face time with real people, through which we learn to understand non-verbal communication such as body language. The new generation of natives in this digital world may be skillful on the keyboard, but they can be hopeless when it comes to reading behavior face-to-face, in real time. This is why they are unaware they upset others by stopping to read a text in the middle of a conversation. Today’s children are growing up in a new reality, one where they are connecting more with machines and less with people than has ever been true in human history.
4. Then there are the costs of attention decline among adults. In Mexico, an advertising representative for a large radio network complains, ‘A few years ago you could make a five-minute video for your presentation at an advertising agency. Today you have to keep it to a minute and a half.’ If you don’t, everyone starts checking for messages. Faced with problems like this, some workplaces have banned laptops, mobile phones, and other digital tools during meetings.