I would ask you all, if you can manage it, to follow me
As I speak for a while on the topic of attention deficiency.
I promise I will attempt to document this with some brevity
For it is attention, as I have mentioned, that is troubling me.
It is our inability to focus, for periods at length,
On subjects and matters of consequence
That is systematic and endemic of our societal situation
We are become fickle, we the ADD generation.
The factors of the matter in this ongoing decay;
The process of information communication and the way that
We structure (or rather clutter) our waking days
With piecemeal inputs from the bizarre to the commonplace
The evermore indispensable internet provides us, in narcotic drips,
A plethora of diversions from advertisements to video clips
And our mind, though in construction sublime, is nonetheless eclipsed
By the chaotic glut of information at our fingertips
Two clicks and I’ve flicked to a video of a man
With his dog drinking lager from an open beer can,
Or an image of a waterfall, a news article or some interesting facts
But more often than not, shots of gratuitous sex acts
Television is worse, feeding us fifteen minute scraps
Of shows (for they know) by the end that our focus will have elapsed
And though we complain at the interruption to our televised choice
Secretly we appreciate the breaks so we can breathe and give voice
To the exhaustion of concentration (and let it be known)
That I myself am a victim of this troubling syndrome
For whilst working or studying I find that I am prone
To wandering thoughts or the welcome distractions of my telephone
With literature we struggle through tomes but seem hopelessly vexed
Unable to sustain thoughts in trains on the relevant texts,
And return, half a page to a section that was somehow unseen,
Missed during a two-minute reverie; a momentary daydream.
When standing lost in our kitchens, we search for any trace
Of our reason for being there in the first place but
Then stumble back to our seats in defeat with stock certainty
That our purpose will then return to us immediately.
We gaze, impotent and vacant when in Supermarket aisles
Aware that in there somewhere are the items we desired
Just ten minutes before, but as we did not write a list,
We leave instead with unsought-after items and the essentials are missed.
Even as I’ve been talking you have most probably found
That your eyes have been searching the walls or the ground
For a diversion or escape from the continuing sound
Of my voice, of me, and of this topic I propound.
If we could arrest our interest for a moment and remove the blinkers from our face
We would see the feckless, fickle future of the human race
And though we may realise with horror the consequence of this evolutionary trap
We’d probably soon just lose interest and watch a humorous clip about cats.
As I speak for a while on the topic of attention deficiency.
I promise I will attempt to document this with some brevity
For it is attention, as I have mentioned, that is troubling me.
It is our inability to focus, for periods at length,
On subjects and matters of consequence
That is systematic and endemic of our societal situation
We are become fickle, we the ADD generation.
The factors of the matter in this ongoing decay;
The process of information communication and the way that
We structure (or rather clutter) our waking days
With piecemeal inputs from the bizarre to the commonplace
The evermore indispensable internet provides us, in narcotic drips,
A plethora of diversions from advertisements to video clips
And our mind, though in construction sublime, is nonetheless eclipsed
By the chaotic glut of information at our fingertips
Two clicks and I’ve flicked to a video of a man
With his dog drinking lager from an open beer can,
Or an image of a waterfall, a news article or some interesting facts
But more often than not, shots of gratuitous sex acts
Television is worse, feeding us fifteen minute scraps
Of shows (for they know) by the end that our focus will have elapsed
And though we complain at the interruption to our televised choice
Secretly we appreciate the breaks so we can breathe and give voice
To the exhaustion of concentration (and let it be known)
That I myself am a victim of this troubling syndrome
For whilst working or studying I find that I am prone
To wandering thoughts or the welcome distractions of my telephone
With literature we struggle through tomes but seem hopelessly vexed
Unable to sustain thoughts in trains on the relevant texts,
And return, half a page to a section that was somehow unseen,
Missed during a two-minute reverie; a momentary daydream.
When standing lost in our kitchens, we search for any trace
Of our reason for being there in the first place but
Then stumble back to our seats in defeat with stock certainty
That our purpose will then return to us immediately.
We gaze, impotent and vacant when in Supermarket aisles
Aware that in there somewhere are the items we desired
Just ten minutes before, but as we did not write a list,
We leave instead with unsought-after items and the essentials are missed.
Even as I’ve been talking you have most probably found
That your eyes have been searching the walls or the ground
For a diversion or escape from the continuing sound
Of my voice, of me, and of this topic I propound.
If we could arrest our interest for a moment and remove the blinkers from our face
We would see the feckless, fickle future of the human race
And though we may realise with horror the consequence of this evolutionary trap
We’d probably soon just lose interest and watch a humorous clip about cats.
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