Casey Schwartz

“This is a rich inquiry into what it means to pay (and maintain) attention in a world increasingly permeated with distraction and interference.”—Publisher’s Weekly Combining expert storytelling with genuine self-scrutiny, Casey Schwartz details the decade she spend taking Adderall to help her pay attention (or so she thought) and then considers the role of attention in defining our lives as it has been understood by thinkers such as William James, David Foster Wallace, and Simone Weil. From our craving for distraction to our craving for a cure, from Silicon Valley consultants and psychedelic researchers to the findings of trauma expert Dr. Gabor Maté, Schwartz takes us on an eye-opening tour of the modern landscape of attention. Blending memoir, biography, and original reporting, Schwarz examines her attempts to preserve her authentic life and decide what is most important in it. Attention: A Love Story will resonate with readers who want to determine their own minds, away from the siren call of their screens.

Attention: A Love Story

An accessible journalistic exploration of the culture of modern psychiatry analyzes early crossover efforts between the fields of neuroscience and psychoanalysis to outline new understandings in how humans think, feel, and behave.

Exploring the New Science of Neuropsychoanalysis

In the Mind Fields

"The author of In the Mind Fields now gives us a comprehensive journalistic exploration of our culture's flagging ability to pay attention, infused with the personal struggles and insights of a woman coming to terms with the demands and distractions of the information age. The average American checks their phone 150 times a day, but we touch our phones about 2,617 times in those same hours. Casey Schwartz wants to understand this change in our lives that seemingly happened without our consent. From attention disorders and medications, mindfulness, psychedelics and creativity, to a brief history of distraction itself, Schwartz acts as our sympathetic and qualified guide. Both validating and galvanizing, Attention examines our lives ruled by distraction. Schwartz's personal attempt to revive her attention ("I'm in as deep as anyone, as splintered, dependent, and distracted. I am jittery and incomplete without my phone") and preserve her authentic life will resonate with readers who also find it very nearly impossible to avoid the pixilated siren call of our screens"--

Casey Schwartz

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