You know who wrote a ton about attention in the past?
Monks.
Reading about how medieval monks conceived of attention and distraction in both functional and spiritual contexts is useful to ground the conversation in how technology (here, often literacy) impacts our ability to do what we mean to do. It is a lot easier (given more generally available/palatable sources) to begin the conversation at the dawn of the modern, but we really shouldn't!
(I'll bet you there's good stuff outside European/Western history, too, I just happen to know the Christian monastic stuff)
Monks.
Reading about how medieval monks conceived of attention and distraction in both functional and spiritual contexts is useful to ground the conversation in how technology (here, often literacy) impacts our ability to do what we mean to do. It is a lot easier (given more generally available/palatable sources) to begin the conversation at the dawn of the modern, but we really shouldn't!
(I'll bet you there's good stuff outside European/Western history, too, I just happen to know the Christian monastic stuff)