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Redefining Attention (And Revamping The Legal Profession?) For The Digital Generation, Lauren A. Newell

Law Faculty Scholarship

With computers, text messages, Facebook, cell phones, smartphones, tablets, iPods, and other information and communication technologies (“ICTs”) constantly competing for our attention, we live in an age of perpetual distraction. Educators have long speculated that constant exposure to ICTs is eroding our ability to stay focused, and recent research supports these speculations. This raises particularly troubling implications for the practice of law, in which being able to pay sustained attention to the task at hand is crucial.

Research also indicates that the brains of today’s young people, the “Digital Generation,” may function differently than the brains of their elders because …