Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn

Professor Davidson brings together diverse and fascinating projects, stories, examples and research in this passionate exhortation on collaboration, intelligence, and technology. Arguing that paying attention to something inherently blinds us to other things, Davidson implores readers to embrace collaboration on the theory that multiple people working on the same problem from different perspectives will compensate for each other's blind spots and lead to vastly improved learning and better solutions.

Davidson believes that the science of attention will shape our future, and makes the case that current schools and workplaces are in conflict because they ask 21st century work from people while remaining mired in the structures and formats of the 20th century. Davidson delves into the realms of psychology, education, technology, neurology and history to support her point and provide examples of how people have bridged/ are bridging the gaps between these discontinuous realms to find success and satisfaction.

I did not agree with all of the author's points, and feel that some of what she presented as fact was actually less solid and more up for debate than she made it out to be. Her work was clearly heavily swayed by her position as faculty in a high-end university and I felt there were some gaps in her argument. Overall, however, she brought great passion to her subject and the book was very well written. There was much information worth considering and it was an interesting work to juxtapose against other, related discourses such as The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, The Good School: How Smart Parents Get Their Kids the Education They Deserve, and The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.