The World Beyond Your Head review – philosophical inquiry that demands your attention

Though you may need a quiet room to read it in, Matthew Crawford’s study of our distracting modern age is a rewarding one

If an attention deficit is the mental equivalent of obesity, perhaps politicians should be more worried about slack minds than flabby waistlines. The bleep of a text message or the flickering image on a TV screen in a communal area may be distracting enough. But public spaces that used to be shielded from unnecessary disturbance are being colonised by the captains of commerce. The lipstick advert that glares out of a baggage tray at airport security is an egregious example, writes Matthew Crawford.

With so many demands on our attention, it seems little wonder it is in short supply. Yet our susceptibility to these forces is not the fault of newfangled technologies like the mobile phone, according to the author. Rather, it is the natural consequence of a philosophy about the self that took root during the Enlightenment and currently has a bearing on phenomena ranging from slot-machine gambling to children’s TV.

Only by acquiring skills that bring us into contact with the physical world can we flourish as social individuals

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