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Life Interrupted

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the irq7 dept.

sch7572 writes "Seattle Times carried this story which may be of interest to those addicted to checking Slashdot for new stories every minute. Scientists are concerned that the Information Age is nurturing 'cognitive overload,' an umbrella term for the malaise people feel as a result of distraction, stress, multitasking, and data congestion related to increasingly sophisticated technologies. People multitask because it is expected, encouraged, and considered vital, yet cognitive scientist David Meyer reports that truly effective multitasking is beyond people's capabilities."

5 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. Protect Your Time by wwest4 · · Score: 4, Informative


    In fact, multitasking -- a computing term that involves doing, or trying to do, more than one thing at once -- has cemented itself into our daily lives and is intensely studied. Research has shown it to be consistently counterproductive, often foolish, unhealthy in the long run, and in the case of gabbing on the cell phone while driving, relatively dangerous. Yet it is also expected, encouraged and basically essential.

    Amen. Now we need the actual studies so that we can cite them for our bosses and clients so they can stop expecting it.

    Once you have some sympathy from your PHB: The best defense, in this case, is a good offense. Declare office hours. Partition your time into usable, contiguous chunks dedicated to single tasks, and stick to the plan. You'll be glad you did.

  2. More than four things ... by Dark$ide · · Score: 2, Informative
    I can't do more than four things at once for a few reasons:
    1. I'm not female - they multitask better than men.
    2. I've only got two hands and two feet. It gets a bit stressful when you're down to your last limb and the phone rings.
    3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4101215.stm
    --

    Sigs. We don't need no steenking sigs.

  3. citations by PsiPsiStar · · Score: 2, Informative

    This is nothing more than an urban legend. It's kindof like saying "most people only use 1% of their hard drive" because you have this empty space that is used as a swap file, only a small portion is written to or read from at time, etc.

    The human brain is a huge energy suck and if we didn't need it, it would be got rid of very quickly. True, there are some parts which can be electrically stimulated which don't produce hallucinations, but what does that prove?

    --

    ___
    It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
  4. Re:Arrrrrgggg! by RealityMogul · · Score: 2, Informative

    I used to be able to code for 12 hours non-stop when I was 15, which was before I had a job, and before the internet was available to me. I'm 28 now and work as a developer. That 12 minute mark sounds about right.

  5. Re:Don't manually check slashdot - use RSS client! by enosys · · Score: 2, Informative

    Your RSS client is only supposed to check slashdot every 30 minutes. Otherwise it can get banned.