In 2003, David Foster Wallace predicted 'attention' problem we live with today, and prescribed one traditional solution

People absolutely hate silence, and noise is their ultimate escape from reality. Today, everybody has a smartphone, and if not doomscrolling, they at least have a podcast or some music playing in their background, basically to block any moment of silence. David Foster Wallace, a prolific writer, had predicted this bleak future back in the early 2000s. In an interview with ZDF, a German TV station, Wallace opened up about people, particularly Americans, replacing silence, a rare, undervalued space, with noise. He said, as we move towards a world of constant stimulation, speed, and self-gratification, there's a part of us that still craves quiet moments filled with introspection and sustained attention. In fact, Wallace also shared a traditional approach that can help us rediscover the beauty of stillness.

America isn't quiet anymore, and you experience it when you walk into public spaces with blaring music, he explained. Now, the music isn't added for people to enjoy it, but only to avoid the silence that brings along uncomfortable, awakening thoughts. Next, Wallace shared that when continuous activity, self-gratification, and the desire for more become the only purpose in life, we tend to neglect a part of us that needs silence, stillness, and deep thinking. And when we continue to overlook this version of ourselves, it manifests as physical discomfort. "And I, I don't know, I don't know whether that makes a whole lot of sense, but I think it's true that here in the U.S. every year the culture gets more and more hostile," Wallace added. But now that we know the real issue, is there any solution to it? Well, Wallace suggested reading, a traditional yet underrated approach to embracing powerful moments of silence.

He said people usually avoid reading, not because they would get bored, but because they're probably scared of sitting alone without any exciting stimulation. Especially in America, Wallace explained, "It becomes more and more difficult to ask people to read or look at a piece of art for an hour, or to listen to a piece of music that's complicated and that takes work to understand." Moreover, he blamed the fast "internet culture," which literally forces us to continuously move forward without pausing for even a minute. "The faster things go, the more we feed that part of ourselves, but don't feed the part of ourselves that likes quiet, that can live in quiet ... you know, that can live without any kind of stimulation," Wallace added.

Timothy Wilson's "electric shock" experiment proved what Wallace had suggested in 2003. The social psychologist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and his colleagues locked young adults alone in a lab room without any devices. The rule was to sit idle in a room for only 15 minutes without doing anything. However, the participants were given a button that they could push to shock themselves if they wanted to. Surprisingly, 67% of men and 25% of women chose to shock themselves rather than sit there quietly and indulge in thinking, according to a report by Science, AAAS. In fact, people have grown so addicted to constant stimulation that over a third of Americans can’t even sleep in silence, a survey conducted for Newsweek by Talker Research reported. They found that nearly half (49%) of Gen Z rely on "white noise" to help them fall asleep.

Meanwhile, reacting to Wallace's interview, @dwightdonnelly8662 commented, "What he is saying is correct; people hate silence; it's uncomfortable for them. Music is pumped in EVERYWHERE you shop, even gas stations! I am so very sick of this! I love to read; I love silence!" @coconutmilch2351 shared, "I love reading. I think people don’t like to read because they don’t know it’s supposed to be an enjoyable experience; they’re going in thinking it’s about bettering themselves. But really good books are a really good time." Similarly, @jimmyschmidt14 wrote, "Now that I have become an overstimulated chronically online person, I find my mind goes into overthinking mode whenever I go offline. Maybe the brain is compensating for all the processing time I never give it. The effect is that I hate to be offline. The quiet world becomes hell. So, I go back to the online world. The cycle continues. The machine has claimed me."

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