Slashdot Mirror
Life Interrupted
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."
cognitive scientist David Meyer reports that truly effective multitasking is beyond people's capabilities
Not yet, but I think eventually it might not be beyond our capabilities, just like learning how to produce heat from wood, and now from splitting atoms.
I spent some time working in the support department for one of my previous companies. After a full day of answering phones, answering questions, problem solving, and tracking things down, I would come home and be absolutely exhausted. All of the constant context switching was very bad for my mental health. Sure, I was able to do the job, but it totally numbed my brain out and made me a tired, frustrated person.
Now as a software engineer I try to work on only one thing at a time. If I try to do more than that then all of my efforts fall behind. If I can focus on one task though, it gets done and done right.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
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."
I suspect this is where the problem lies. The difference between "effective multitasking" and "bumming on the internet" is the crucial point. Both are attempting jumping from one task to another, the first for a pupose say doing your job. The second doesnt have a purpose or a structure so it has no more purpose than doing it itself.
It is almost as if you are addicted to performing a task (browsing the internet) and the performing of the task becomes the goal, instead of working towards, something at the end.
Net Online Anime Gallery's
It's not like we read the stories...
Just look at the comments people leave. It's pretty obvious that the average Slashdotters attention span is about that of a -Oh look a bunny!
However, speaking (sadly enough) as a member of the "older generation" who actually implmented some of the changes in technology and communication you discuss in the far-distant 1980s and 90s, let me offer this: I used to work in industrial facilities designed and built in the 1920-1940 time period. Along with my "young people", "progressive" coworkers I spent a lot of time, effort, and money "upgrading" these facilities to what we considered "better" technology. All fully computerized of course.
Looking back on what we did, I now realize that those engineers from the 1940s were a lot smarter than we were, and thought about the problems they were assigned a lot more deeply than we did (you see this all the time in VoIP today). The "improvements" that we installed to replace that "archiac" technology were not, in retrospect, necessarily improvements, and may not have done anyone any good.
E-mail is another good example. I have been using it since the late 1970s. During the 1985-1995 time frame it may have actually been a net productivity gain. Today? Probably the biggest productivity destroyer out there.
Be careful what you wish for. You may get it.
sPh
I think the article is generalizing too much. Firstly, multi-tasking is the wrong word to use as we're not simultaneously doing two or more activities, but are doing it in a round-robin, pre-emptive, or time-sharing kind of way. Again, one's ability to successfully pull this off depends on one's temperament, prioritization ability, and the kind of work involved. Repetitive work can easily be done in this way, for example, simply because after sufficient practise, the work itself becomes mechanical and doesn't need any cognitive ability. On the other hand, work that requires genuine thinking effort is done best without interruption, especially when one is in the "flow" or "zone". Again, if a person has the mental discipline to ignore other interruptions or re-priorotize the distractions, it's not too much of a problem.
In another vein, we've always had distractions, and the ones posed by technology are just a new form of it. What separates an efficient individual from an inefficient one is the ability to block out these distractions when needed, and only focus on the goal at hand. The rest is all FUD that these so-called cognitive experts throw in to justify their existence. I'm fedup of these experts extrapolating some extreme cases and generalizing them to create non-existent issues.
Cognitive overload. Bah. We've always had cognitive overload. Only the jingo is new. I think i should change my profession and start bullshitting my way into some real money.
I've told management: "I don't want to run an instant messenger, it hurts my productivity and is very stressful"
They replied: "It's the way we're doing business as a team"
Now I'm looking for a job elsewhere, because exactly as described in the article, I'm exhausted at the end of the day, I have a backlog of projects like you wouldn't imagine, it's stupid.
I've found myself reluctant to focus on complex tasks because I expect to be interrupted. Interruptions from instant messaging are often emergencies which occupy a whole day with stupid little updates and inappropriate prioritization. It seems the A-hole bugging you on IM is more important than the person silently and patiently waiting for the scheduled deadline.
I forget things, I can't read a document to completion or properly compose replies to email. Infact... right now, I'm avoiding a complex task... my IM will crackle to life any second with some stupid emergency. It feels futile to even get started when it takes an hour just to set things up to start working on it. Four times in the past two weeks, my instant messenger has dragged me into some emergency which has prevented me from working on it.
I'm trying to push management back to a usenet-style system for "I need help!" emergencies and a careful analysis of timelines and responsibility (i.e. fault and impact) before anyone picks up a phone. There's nothing wrong with interrupting people if there's an emergency, but management should be able to prevent it from reaching that point.
(Hey look, I got an instant message! and it should only take about two hours to deal with. Glad I didn't get started on that project.)
If you had RTFA you would know that you are a dellusioned individual. You "WANT to" because you are addicted to the dopamine that is released each time you learn "new stuff" or "expand [your] understanding of the world".
Tell me, do you feel down, or groggy, or in any way sad, when you do not monitor your couple of dozen sites? What happens when you go for a day or two without internet access? These would be withdrawal symptoms.
So, you show a prime example of the problem -- no, in fact your are the very epidome. You think you are using every conceivable second of your life to the fullest. You have this push to experience everything immediately and constantly. But for what reason? Why do they have to all occur simultaneously? More importantly, how did you come about the decision that doing only one thing at a time is "complete waste of precious time"!?
Logically following your views to their conclusion would mean that the moment you focus on anything it becomes a waste of time. This is so absolutely flawed, I am now speechless.
Please take an objective view of yourself, and discover what your motives (if any) are for feeling the way you do. Then please respond and tell me how they are not in any way related to your dopamine addiction.
According to the article we should focus on only one task at a time and not switch between tasks.
/.ish things to say:
This leaves me with two
1) I will then focus all my attention on this thread until such time as I deem the task complete
or
2) As I focus myself on this threa . . . Oh look a new thingy to work on!
This leads me to wonder if ADD / ADHD are actually coping mechanisms of the human mind? It kind of makes sense, as our brains are programmed for task switching at an early age with most kids being babysat by the TV and commercials being 30 seconds in length. Anybody know how long the feature program is between commercial breaks? 12 minutes perhaps?
-nB
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Unfortunately, wanting to does not protect your brain from damage caused by prolonged exposure to stress hormones. Those getting hit by stress burnout are often the ones that want to and enjoy what they do.
I'm reminded of a note on Dr. Donald Knuth's web page. Dr. Knuth apparently ditched e-mail in 1990 after 15 years of use.
Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration.
ind it interesting that, at least in the studies I've read about this, that it affects mostly adults, and younger people are largely immune to it.
Hmm, first, which studies?
Secondly, and more to the point, "younger people are largely immune to it" so far. Youth implies a shorter exposure to the hazards of multitasking, not neccesarily a greater inherent resistance to it's ill effects.
In fact, Human Resource departments and therapists are seeing more and more people are burning out in their mid-twenties. Stress releated conditions, such as ulcers, hypertension, etc, normally seen in middle age, are becoming increasingly common in younger and younger individuals.
So you can't state "younger people are largely immune" until you have actually seen them grow older without ill effect, and the early evidence is not on your side.
suppose it's simply that older people, not being used to this mass of information
It's been decades since an average person could first easily recieve vastly more information in a day than they could ever process. (For an interesting historical sidetrip, look up the 19th century origins of the hypothysised medical condition "neurasthesia," attributed to the prevalance of the telegraph and telephone and how they sped up the pace of life. Even if neurasthesia is a bogus condition, it tells you something about how long information overload has been an issue.) Don't fall victim to an intellectual version of the same "immortality syndrome" that convinces teenagers they can engage in any reckless physical behavior they choose, because they, unlike all the old people, will never die.
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who
I really don't spend much time on TV but when I'm ready for sleep I sometimes surf the cable offerings. I've noticed because of my ability to multitask that some cable channels have about 7 minutes between commercials.
That is why I hate TV. If you took the commercials out of commercial TV it would be a big improvement to even the worst shows.
I have something better: Terminal Ennui . There's cognitive overload, but that's not the real problem. The real problem today is that because of cognitive overload, we're made too objectively aware of the world. The traditional motivation to struggle to become the best at something is basically short-circuited today, as well can instantly see not only many other people doing the same things we're doing, but maybe better. Or, we can all too well see it having *already been done*. Leaving the sensation that there's no point in trying to do much of anything at all. Cognitive overload is just a precursor. Terminal ennui.
When our technological dreams began becoming reality, some pundits predicted we would be swamped by leisure time. That didn't happen. We're working longer and harder, and seem more stressed over downsizing and outsourcing and expectations than ever.
But why should that be so? The answer is not "globalization", which is just the latest leftist term for "capitalism." (I guess "neo-liberal" is an even newer term, since this is the first time I've seen it used.) The answer is much simpler: taxes. All productivity gains, and then some, are eaten up by excessive taxation.
In Canada, almost 50% of every dollar we make goes to the government. (The U.S. is in a similar, although slightly better, situation.)
It's simple math that explains why families changed from single-parent earners to double-parent earners. If you take away half of a family's income, then twice as many people in that family have to work. (Theoretically, one person could work twice as many hours, or get paid twice as much, but those alternate solutions are very unlikely.)
Stop blaming Wal-Mart, Boeing, McDonalds, etc. for the problems that are actually caused by the government, and we can start finding actual solutions to our problems.
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.