The Problem of Attention

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I will be the first to admit I have a short attention span. When reading, I often peek ahead to see how many pages are left in the chapter. If I’m listening to someone teach, I need to type a lot of notes to keep my focus. Having grown up on TV and the internet, I think I am not alone in this struggle. We live around lots of media sources that grab our attention immediately, hold us for 30 seconds, and then rush on to the next interesting thing.

So last year, I was reading Neil Postman’s 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, and was amazed to learn about the debates between President Abraham Lincoln and Senator Stephen Douglas from 1858 to packed auditoriums. At one debate, Stephen Douglas got up and spoke for three hours uninterrupted. That is already amazing, but then it was Abraham Lincoln’s turn to speak for three hours. He noted that it was already 5 p.m., and if he spoke now they would go past dinner. He suggested that the audience go home, have dinner, and then come back for his speech, followed by another hour of Douglas replying.

The most amazing part is that the audience agreed, left, and all came back. Postman writes, “What kind of audience was this? Who were these people who could so cheerfully accommodate themselves to seven hours of oratory?” I agree.

I think shorter attention spans make us stick out in history. If we look at Scripture, we can see hints of people with much longer attention spans. In Luke 9:10-12 a crowd gathers around Jesus and spends so long listening to him teach that they need to be fed so they won’t faint on the journey home. In Acts 20:7-12, Paul speaks to a group of Christians past midnight. He taught for so long that a young man fell asleep, fell out of a window, and had to be raised back to life. I don’t know if I find the resurrection or being able to listen to one person talk for that long more amazing! Or is it more amazing that he then got up and went back upstairs to listen to more?

When Postman shares the story about the Lincoln-Douglas debates, he is making a point about how we used to think. He calls this “typographic thinking,” where the way we think has been shaped by the written word. Postman says that this kind of thinking means longer attention spans and the ability to follow longer and more complex sentences. It is a mind shaped by reading widely and deeply.

The Reformed Tradition Loves Words

The Christian Reformed Church is deeply connected to the written word, and I believe our traditions connect with typographic thinking. First, our highest authority is Scripture. We emphasize reading it together and alone. We also have the confessions, which define our shared theology, and they are long. The main parts of the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort combine for about 25,000 words, which works out to about four and a quarter hours of reading.

Then you have sermons. They are not usually three hours, but 35-50 minutes is not uncommon. To continue our tradition with its love of Scripture, its comprehensive confessions, and its substantial sermons, reading and attention are important.

The Bible encourages us to meditate on God’s law and promises. Psalm 119:148 encourages sustained attention when it says, “My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.” As the people of Israel receive God’s law, he instructs them to keep it central in their life together. Deuteronomy 11:18-19 says, “Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”

God calls us to pay attention to his Word and keep it central in our lives. Our tradition is formed in obedience to that call.

Where to Find Our Attention?

When Postman was writing in 1985, he was concerned about how TV had changed people’s attention. He noticed that people had started paying attention only if they were entertained. In the time since, I think the trouble with this has only gotten worse. Even on TV, writers are told to make their plots simpler and repeat information because people have trouble paying attention even through a half-hour episode. As a denomination formed by reading and attention to the Word, this is a concern for us. Life in the CRC requires a lot of reading, but the forms of media in our world have made reading harder.

There are two unhelpful ways we could respond to this reality. The first is to just demand that people read more, but I don’t think that will work. The second is to accept the change and pivot to using more video. This seems very hospitable, but as the Heidelberg Catechism says, “God wants the Christian community instructed by the living preaching of his Word” (Q&A 98). We need to be able to read and pay attention too, even as these things are difficult.

The Reformers dealt with this challenge in their time and had a good response. They recognized the importance of reading God’s word, even when many people were illiterate. Instead of ignoring this challenge or giving up, they made an effort to teach others how to read so they could engage with Scripture for themselves. We can look at shrinking attention spans and more difficulty with reading in our own time in a similar way. We don’t need to accept what has happened, but we do need to consider how we might help people to reengage with the printed words of Scripture and our tradition.

How can we recover the Reformation emphasis on reading and attention? The first step is recognizing the challenge. I think the second step is encouraging one another to read. We continue to encourage the reading of Scripture, but any kind of reading helps you improve at reading. Sharing good books, forming book clubs, and reading to one another can all encourage more reading in our communities.

Third, I think leaders should consider how they can help build the attention span of the members in our churches. They can research and suggest ways to stay focused on the sermon or ensure that teaching has an outline to help people stay engaged.

Reading is a great gift from God and an important part of our Reformed tradition. We would do well to help one another read.