This is a page for brief comments on the changing role of attention in American culture.  See my essay “Contesting the Human Normal,” https://pubclassroom.com/2016/02/12/adhd-contesting-the-human-normal/, for more on the emergence of the Attention Deficit Disorder diagnosis, revised in the psychiatric profession as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in 1987, and for an overview of debates about how to deal with these tendencies to distraction.

What’s DAT offers short accounts of what Americans have been paying attention to and what is being ignored.  Does attention follow love or hate, the important or the exciting?  Have our capacities for attention changed as our lives have changed in speed of travel and communication, where we live, how we work, and how we play?  Does attention support our thoughts or our feelings?  Can others control your attention, or are you in charge?  What other parts of life attract or distract for this vital gatekeeper of the human mind?