SAST
- Mike Dickey
- Mar 27
- 3 min read
"At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction."
Years ago, in the very early days of Comedy Central, I remember a program named Short Attention Span Theater. The setup was that they presented a series of short clips of stand-up comics talking about one topic or another, packed into a mere thirty minutes. I mean, how could anyone get their arms around something in that short of a time?
I thought of that old show this morning when I ran across an interesting piece in the NYT, on the common theme these days of our inability to think deeply in this age of smartphones, TikTok videos, and now AI generated slop.
The author suggests that we treat our brain like a muscle, and realize that if we don't exercise it regularly---ironically, sometimes by simply sitting still and pondering--we start to lose our ability to reason and solve problems, in a very objective sense. Technological distractions are in fact making us stupider.
[footnote: which I reckon explains Trump in some sense--he is a series of random TikTok videos, masquerading as a chief executive. It takes one to elect one].
I see it all around me--at least a half-dozen times a day, someone almost plows into me on a Manhattan sidewalk, transfixed by whatever they're seeing on their phones. Although these kids in the NYU program aren't as broadly addled as some of the law students I used to teach, who would sit in class shopping on eBay or watching videos on mute while I tried to walk them through some nuance of the bank statement rule, I do see that going on around me with at least a few here.
But I'm not writing to play the complaining curmudgeon--they grew up in this world, have never known a place in their adult life without Instagram or Twitter or YouTube or TikTok. They'll figure out how to cope with all of that, or not.
As for me, I'm sort of semi-marinaded in the technological moment, at 61 and having been raised in a world where we read books and knew the joys and the boredom of, as Pascal put it, sitting quietly in a room alone. I look at my phone too much. The emails notifications are a steady barrage during the day, and sometimes in the wee small hours now that I'm doing a little work overseas. I rely on AI sometimes to give me a first draft of a simple motion or court notice, realizing I then must edit and carefully go back and review the citations of authority to make sure the robot isn't hallucinating.
Mostly I've noticed in myself less ability to sit and work slowly and patiently through sometimes rather complicated legal concepts. When things are busy, it's too easy to drop that question into Protege, Lexis's AI product, and let the digital first-year associate spit out an answer. I've reached a point where it's hard to picture juggling this volume of work and the demands of school without that little lift in my shoe, but it comes at a cost. The thing I've charged a fortune for over the years is that ability to work through extremely challenging legal issues, but now I work in short bursts and the long muscles of the brain are starting to atrophy in real time. Old age is certainly part of all that. So is the collapse of my exercise regimen after this knee surgery, to the extent physical vigor is required for cognitive health. Happy hour can't help much, either. All things under my control, if I'll actually do something about it.
Today we have a make-up class in partnership tax at 2, and before then I'll watch my international tax video and try to catch up on the work projects that have led to serial emails that can be fairly summarized as, "Hey, it's [insert client name here]. Haven't heard from you in a few weeks. Where are we on [insert neglected project name here]."
Our reward to ourselves at the end of all that will be a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is open until nine on Fridays. A little contemplation of beauty and images meant to challenge the mind and the spirit is good for the noggin, as well.
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