On my way to work this morning, I retrieved the Jan. 27, 2025 issue of The New Yorker from the mailbox. At my lunch break, I took that issue with me on my walk to the Durham Food Hall, where I sat with a cappuccino and slice of coffee cake, and I settled into this essay by Daniel Immerwahr, What if the Attention Crisis Is All a Distraction? It’s an interesting take on the age-old tradition of crying danger at new technology—TikTok, television, the iron stove, novels!—and what our abilities to focus may be doing to ourselves and to society.
Just last night, I’d sent a message to a colleague offering to lend my copies of Deep Work and Slow Productivity, both by Cal Newport. Those are just two of the many books and podcasts and articles I’ve studied over the last year as I’ve changed the ways I’ve worked and played. I’ve also finally started to read my copy of The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg (mine is an advanced reader’s copy that I received at ScienceOnline 2012).
I starred this paragraph in Immerwahr’s essay:
[Chris Hayes’s] illuminating backstage account of cable news describes thoughtful journalists debasing themselves in their scramble to retain straying viewers. Garish graphics, loud voices, quick topic changes, and titillating stories—it’s like jangling keys to lure a dog. The more viewers get their news from apps, the harder television producers have to shake those keys.
A few days ago, I’d complained to Erin that I disliked how NPR news programs come back from station breaks with some version of “Elephants in Africa are…but first we’re going to hear from Senator….” I guess that’s the ‘quick topic changes’ mentioned above.
Another Immerwahr sentence: “When someone calls for audiences to be more patient, I instinctively think, Alternatively, you could be less boring.”
Last week, in interviews for a promotion, I was asked to briefly describe my career journey. Both times, I realized, I didn’t do the best in answering, so I dropped into zuiker.com/zen/ to draft a script for next time. Through habit, I’ll be ready with an answer.
In college I studied communications, then worked as a features writer in Hawaii and as editor of an arts and culture magazine in Cleveland.
After Peace Corps service in the South Pacific, I became an early blogger, web content strategist, and organizer of online community.
I earned a masters degree in medical journalism from UNC-Chapel Hill, worked on an AIDS-related global health project, and then joined Duke University, where I coordinated internal communications for the health system, lead the Department of Medicine communications activities, and now work as a communications project manager and team leader in the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
Along my journey, I also organized an international science communications network and won awards for the Voices of Duke Health podcast.
I am in my 25th year blogging at zuiker.com.
© Anton Zuiker