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A Deadly Wandering: Part Three

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Matt Richtel explores the profound influence of technology on society in this account of a tragic car accident and its aftermath.

Here are links to our lists for the book: Part One, Part Two, Part Three
40 words 75 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. advocacy
    active support of an idea or cause
    It became, arguably, the most powerful, and effective public safety advocacy group in the country.
  2. tangential
    of superficial relevance if any
    Something visceral and less tangential than, say, statistics, laws, police enforcement, or television commercials: The issue had to be made personal.
  3. habituate
    familiarize psychologically or physically
    Could a video game—the very technology that often seems to distract someone by drawing them away from other priorities or to shorten attention span through habituating players to constant stimulation—hold the keys to training people to sustain attention?
  4. paradoxical
    seemingly contradictory but nonetheless possibly true
    It was a basic power struggle and Dr. Greenfield adopted what he describes as a “paradoxical approach.”
  5. abeyance
    temporary cessation or suspension
    Such an agreement, called a plea in abeyance, would allow for his record to be wiped clean, should he meet all the conditions.
  6. obsessed
    having excessive or compulsive concern with something
    He didn’t say it, but ever since Dr. Strayer’s testimony, he was obsessed by the idea that he had been texting, maybe not at the precise moment of the crash, maybe a moment before, he couldn’t exactly remember.
  7. docket
    the calendar of a court
    His was the last case on the docket, and by the time they got to him, it was dark outside.
  8. vertiginous
    having or causing a whirling sensation; liable to falling
    He’d begun to bridge the vertiginous gap between what he told the world and the truth he knew deep inside.
  9. harrowing
    causing extreme distress
    Kaylene now had to have a direct, possibly tough talk about it with Terryl, who, remarkably enough, had just had her own harrowing driving accident.
  10. distraught
    deeply agitated especially from emotion
    Driving home, distraught and reckless, speeding, she’d nearly gone off the side of the road.
  11. irate
    feeling or showing extreme anger
    Terryl was irate. Reggie would skate with a little jail time and community service, and then have his record wiped clean.
  12. smattering
    a small number or amount
    They gathered in room 25, nothing fancy, more like city council chambers than a rotunda, the committee members in a horseshoe at the front, and a smattering of people in the two aisles of chairs looking on.
  13. palatable
    acceptable to the taste or mind
    “What will it take to make this work for you? What can I do to get your vote? What do I need to do to make this palatable?”
  14. gregarious
    temperamentally seeking and enjoying the company of others
    Gregarious and happy to engage on any topic, Wimmer jumped right in during the hearing to express his concern about the proposed texting ban.
  15. misdemeanor
    a crime less serious than a felony
    He read from a law passed just a year earlier that made it a class A misdemeanor to drive carelessly for any number of reasons, including using a mobile phone.
  16. maelstrom
    a powerful circular current of water
    On March 10, at 3:50 p.m., justice was served in a maelstrom of emotion, grief, and a nagging uncertainty that had plagued these people since it all began.
  17. chaotic
    completely unordered and unpredictable and confusing
    There was one, on page 74 of his edition, that comes under the heading “A Place for Arriving at Convictions” and discusses a chaotic courtroom scene in France in the early 1900s, where the book’s protagonist, Jean Valjean, faces judgment.
  18. heedless
    characterized by careless unconcern
    At one end of the hall at which he found himself, heedless justice in threadbare robes were biting their fingernails or closing their eyelids, at the other end was a ragged rabble.
  19. disingenuous
    not straightforward or candid
    To these families, it all seemed so disingenuous, the thinly veiled plea for mercy and, most of all, the idea that Reggie was taking responsibility, “willing to man up.”
  20. contrite
    feeling or expressing pain or sorrow
    How contrite or sorry could Reggie really be, and why?
  21. remorseful
    feeling or expressing pain or sorrow
    “I can’t take back my actions. I can only live from this day on in service to others in remorseful remembrance of James Furfaro and Keith O’Dell.”
  22. accolade
    a tangible symbol signifying approval or distinction
    She talked of his many accolades as a rocket scientist.
  23. notoriety
    the state of being known for some unfavorable act or quality
    Linton addressed the judge, saying this had been one of the toughest cases, “perhaps more difficult than cases gotten more notoriety and more attention—murder cases, rape cases.
  24. squalid
    foul and run-down and repulsive
    He is caught by a benevolent bishop, who keeps Valjean from going to prison for life by telling police he’d given the squalid ex-prisoner the candlesticks as a gift.
  25. unsavory
    morally offensive
    As Reggie hands over his old clothes, Linton’s voice comes in: “He will be in with some very unsavory people.”
  26. hippocampus
    a structure in the floor of the brain's lateral ventricle
    People who focused on doing only one thing performed learning and memory tasks with the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, whereas people trying to do two tasks relied more heavily to learn and memorize on the parts of the brain associated with motor skills.
  27. expunge
    remove by erasing or crossing out or as if by drawing a line
    The letter went on to discuss a few finalities involving insurance and Mr. Kaiserman and to explain that Reggie’s file could be expunged and the court records sealed.
  28. predisposition
    an inclination in advance to react in a particular way
    If, after all, he was an outlier, someone with a predisposition to distraction, it would be worth knowing.
  29. convergence
    the occurrence of two or more things coming together
    The convergence of technology, science, and medicine was on display everywhere you looked.
  30. implode
    burst inward
    His attention network took on a predictable load as his performance imploded.
  31. compost
    convert to a mixture of decaying vegetation and manure
    The idea had come after Terryl had suggested putting earthworms in the kitchen in a big box to help compost in a natural and effective way.
  32. dissonance
    a conflict of people's opinions or actions or characters
    Honesty can be hard, obviously. That’s in part because it can be so hard to even see the points of conflict or dissonance. We have powerful defense mechanisms—personal prejudice, shame, societal messages, and, yes, technology.
  33. horrendous
    causing fear or dread or terror
    Why is one person who didn’t have such a bad childhood so ill, and why is another person who had such a horrendous childhood able to function at such a relatively high level?
  34. altruism
    the quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others
    The research, led by Emma Seppala, the associate director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, found that the veterans saw a significant decrease in their startle response when they did deep breathing.
  35. precursor
    something indicating the approach of something or someone
    The sum of these studies, and others along the same lines, offer a pretty clear road map to reaching a state of mind that allows for good decision making and better awareness of one’s life—the precursors to balance and happiness.
  36. caliber
    a degree or grade of excellence or worth
    She was in her late twenties, a high-level speed cyclist, Olympic caliber.
  37. periphery
    the outside boundary or surface of something
    On the screen of her iPad, she plays a relatively primitive video game that entails identifying targets that at first appear in the middle of the screen but get farther out on the periphery.
  38. accrued
    periodically accumulated over time
    “It is clear that multitasking behavior has become ubiquitous in today’s technologically dense world, and substantial evidence has accrued regarding multitasking difficulties and cognitive control deficits in our aging population,” reads the introduction to the Nature paper.
  39. kudos
    an expression of approval and commendation
    Indeed, the research earned kudos from a range of attention scientists.
  40. squeamish
    easily disturbed or disgusted by unpleasant things
    For the most part, the idea made her feel squeamish, as it does for lots of people.
Created on Thu Apr 09 20:10:25 EDT 2015 (updated Wed Sep 05 16:49:32 EDT 2018)

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