In the late 1990s and early 2000s, one sensed a kind of exuberance about the possibilities of multitasking.

But more recently, challenges to the ethos of multitasking have begun to emerge.

When we talk about multitasking, we are really talking about attention: the art of paying attention, the ability to shift our attention, and, more broadly, to exercise judgment about what objects are worthy of our attention.

Today, our collective will to pay attention seems fairly weak.

When people do their work only in the “interstices of their mind-wandering,” with crumbs of attention rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.