What do we do with all the information we consume over the years? I'm sure we don't bin it but where does it all go? It's certainly not all there at my fingertips. I am surprisingly good at answering general knowledge questions on TV quiz programmes. It's one thing demonstrating that depth of intellectual knowledge in response to one-off questions from Bradley Walsh or Clive Mylie but something else to sustain an intelligent extended conversation on these topics with someone who knows what they are talking about.

I read moral philosophy at university but could only stand in awe of the late Robin Downie when faced with his erudite and clearly presented philosophy articles in the Scottish Review. 'Inductive reasoning, stoicism, utility and a priori knowledge' all rang a bell with me when I read them on the page but don't ask me to sit down and write about them.

At school I studied languages: Russian, French, Latin and Greek. I couldn't afford to go on any school trips so never got the chance to use the first two in conversation. Today, I have a huge residual foreign language vocabulary, but faced with a French or Russian speaker I freeze. I can probably speak as much conversational Spanish now as French or Russian thanks to my foreign holidays: dos cafés con leche por favor.

Everything has to have a diagnosis these days. My struggle with attention and focus might be put down to a case of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). My only consolation is that I'm far from alone in experiencing this. Last year, King's College London's Centre for Attention Studies (yes, it really does exist) found that 49% of 2,000 adults surveyed felt their attention span was shorter than it used to be. Almost as many (47%) agreed that 'deep thinking has become a thing of the past'.

In a new book published this year, Attention Span: Finding Focus for a Fulfilling Life, author Dr Gloria Mark concludes that there are two schools of thought on attention. The first argues that we haven't lost our ability to focus, it has been stolen from us by technology. Those in the second camp maintain that most of our struggles with focus are more to do with self-control. We can't be distracted unless we are on some level willing to be distracted.

Thanks to spending all our time on social media, we tend to consume and produce content in bite-size chunks, at a frenetic pace. I'm not going to take a 600-page historical novel to bed with me but I am quite happy to consume all the content of a Scottish Review at a single sitting (although Gerry Hassan's contributions wouldn't lose anything by being three or four paragraphs shorter). 'We are creating the culture,' says Mark. 'Our attention spans have shaped the media, and the media in turn is shaping our attention.'

Think I'll just stop there. I want to read my emails.

Alastair Osborne



While walking up Lothian Road in Edinburgh city centre, earlier in the week, I had to do a bit of a double take. Walking a few paces in front of me was a group of four people. The older adults, I suspect, were mum and dad. Alongside them were younger, late adolescents who I guess were their weans. No biggie so far. However, it was just as I was about to pass them that I noticed they were all wearing exactly the same white trainers with black markings. Not similar, but the exact same ones.

As I walked on, I tried to make sense of what I had witnessed. I could have understood the older adults 'chumming up' and expressing some form of affection by opting for the same footwear, but the young ones? When I was a youngster, you would not have been seen dead in vaguely the same attire as your mum and dad. I did sport one of my dad's old overcoats in my late rebellious teens but only because he had discarded it. What were these people thinking?

It kept bugging me, maybe they were part of some cult and this was the way which the followers expressed themselves, providing a way of recognising fellow adherents by their shoes? This theory was dismissed just as quickly as it entered my head. It then struck me, it may well be a form of a collective, but more commercial. Perhaps they were expressing themselves, yes, but as a corporate entity? The sort of thing you hear coming from the supposed future business leaders, as witnessed through The Apprentice. They were presenting themselves as a unit! These were people so affected by the onset of cheap real-life style programming that they had inadvertently started from the floor up to develop into some kind of home brand.

Worse, perhaps this was the beginning of a notion that might sweep the nation. Instead of our identity being recognised by a family name, we might face the nightmarish scenario where we are asked on a census or other identification documents our brand.

Worse still, the next step could be that we then sell advertising space on our day to day clothing, thereby monetising our life experience. Perhaps even creating our own, empty, tacky and ultimately meaningless reality TV series.

This is a truly frightening thought: our individual identity being subsumed into some kind of corporately driven reality. On the other hand, it might just be that this family/brand, individually, unbeknownst to the others, decided to wear the same shoes. Maybe on realising their faux pas, as I passed, they were discussing their collective embarrassment that they all opted on this day to turn out in the same kit.

I don't know. I'm off to do some other stuff. Now where is that Parker Pen, I had sitting next to my Apple iPhone? I am certain I had it when I was drinking that can of Coca-Cola (decaf) and watching that movie on Netflix. I'd better check my Facebook later. However, I digress, the main point is that we must stay free...

Frank Eardley



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