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All of that data flying at you by e-mail, instant message, cell phone, voice mail and BlackBerry--it could actually be making you dumber.
Dr. Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist who's studied attention deficit disorder for more than a decade, has identified a related disorder he calls attention deficit trait, and he says it's reaching epidemic proportions in the corporate world. Unlike attention deficit disorder, or ADD, people aren't born with ADT. It's the result, he contends, of the modern workplace, where the constant and relentless chatter coming from our computers, phones and other high-tech devices is diluting our mental powers.
Hallowell, formerly a Harvard Medical School faculty member, recently sat down with CNET News.com to talk about ADT as well as when the right times to log off, hang up or take a time-out might be. We paid attention.
Q: What is ADT?
Hallowell: It's sort of like the normal version of attention deficit disorder. But it's a condition induced by modern life, in which you've become so busy attending to so many inputs and outputs that you become increasingly distracted, irritable, impulsive, restless and, over the long term, underachieving. In other words, it costs you efficiency because you're doing so much or trying to do so much, it's as if you're juggling one more ball than you possibly can.
What are some of the symptoms?
Hallowell: When people find that they're not working to their full potential; when they know that they could be producing more but in fact they're producing less; when they know they're smarter than their output shows; when they start answering questions in ways that are more superficial, more hurried than they usually would; when their reservoir of new ideas starts to run dry; when they find themselves working ever-longer hours and sleeping less, exercising less, spending free time with friends less and in general putting in more hours but getting less production overall.
When did you start to notice ADT as a disorder distinct from ADD?
Hallowell: So many people would come to me looking for a diagnosis of ADD, and I noticed some of them didn't really have the condition because it went away completely when they went on vacation, or it went away completely when they went off to a relaxed setting.
In ADD--the true ADD--it doesn't go away, wherever you go. So I realized that these people were having it induced by their work world. When they got to work, then symptoms would start to occur. So that meant that something was going on at work. That something is this overload.
Haven't people always had distractions at work? Is this really anything new?
Hallowell: It's new because never before have we been so able to overload the brain circuitry. We've been able to overload manual labor. But never before have we so routinely been able to overload brain labor.
Hallowell: Aside from underachievement, you don't ever get the fulfillment of seeing yourself coming up with the ideas you ought to come up with. You don't get the fulfillment that comes from creative activity. You live at a much more surface level.
I imagine it takes a toll on the organization as well.
Hallowell: Absolutely. Organizations are sacrificing their most valuable asset, namely the imagination and creativity of the brains they employ, by allowing ADT to infest the organization. It's not that hard to deal with, once you identify it. You need to set limits and preserve time to think. Warren Buffett sits in a little office in the middle of nowhere and spends a lot of his time just thinking. And we are not giving ourselves that opportunity.
You say this condition is reaching epidemic proportions. What percentage of the working population suffers from ADT, in your estimation?
Hallowell: I'm guessing now, because I haven't done surveys. But I've done informal surveys at seminars I give. If we're talking about the working population as sort of managers and
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What were we talking about now?
Seriously, I actually went to the doctor for this thinking I had ADD. He didn't think I had ADD.
I did suspect that it was because there was too much static in my life from work tasks, e-mail, cell phones, cubicles, those stupid radio commercials, web popups...they all take brain cycles and at some point, your concentration gets perforated and you are just touching lightly on a great many things instead of focusing on just a few.
Well, I guess I just said what was the solution to my problem.
Now to finish that article and go back to work.
of preparing an invoice for a client. I heard the beep notifying
me that I had an email, so of course I left my initial task
midstream to find out what it was. Such a Pavlovian response!
For obvious reasons, I was intrigued by the CNet piece, got to
the end of the first page, and realized I hadn't finished writing
the letter! Bouncing between two computers, I wrapped up my
business communication, scrolled to the second page of the
CNet interview, got half way through and started laughing! I
can't even make it through an 3 page interview!
Then there's memory...
How much do you remember of the television show(s) you watched yesterday? Last week? Are they a gray screen to you?
Focus!
When you read, concentrate on it. If nothing else, say the words you're reading in your head as you read, and don't 'skim' an article, glancing at clumps of words. Most people aren't Renshaw trained, so they can't memorize pages at a glance, but if you allow yourself to concentrate, you'll retain a lot more, especially if you visualize it at the same time. Isn't that what you do when you read, say, a science-fiction book? Try doing that with other things, and see how much information you retain after you've read it. If you try the skimming method, you're going to miss things, like typos in what you wrote. Hint, hint, Alorie Gilbert. Re-read your article slowly.
Oh, Rhyss Leary: If you want to turn off those pop-up ads, just turn off JavaScript if you're using something like Netscape, Firefox, or the Mozilla Suite, or if you're one of those silly people who Web-surf with Internet Explorer, set your Internet security level to High. Trust somebody who's been making Web pages for ten years. ;-)
Details on how to do it, here, if you're interested: www.cyberwolfman.com/internet_help.htm#popups
Not a real commercial site, btw. I just hate ads, so I got my own domain name for my personal pages. LOL
- CyberWoLfman
Multitasking is a kind fashionnable characteristic.
But not only bosses are like this. i can bet everyday life is going this way with people eating , surfing the web and viewing tv at the same time . Of course they go on speaking with others without understanding that the message doesn't get through.
having a laptop and always feeling like I should be working and
doing something productive. My schedule doesn't help, but I too
fall into the trap of checking e-mail, surfing and so on. Plus with
the iPod, I've always got something to fill my head with.
I guess I'll try maybe talking walks at lunch, without the iPod, to
see if I can clear my head easier.
But it's ironic that I can across this article because I was just
complaining to my wife that I had similar affects. Hopefully cnet
will do a follow-up article with the guy to find out his
suggestions for managing the problem.
No wonder coffee shops aren't going out of business like lemmings off a cliff. Caffine is the great equalizer to the internet.
After reading Driven in '96 as a full-fledged first-year academic, I have to admit that while the terminology is changing slightly, it still misses an important and perhaps crucial point, one that as a now full-fledged "tech-ademic" more of us may be aware of. That is, whether this "condition", this specific behavioral pattern, is really a feature or a bug?
Is it an asset or liability/disability?
Personally, I have posited that any of the following terms be considered to more accurately describe it and the people that possess it:
- Parallel Attention [Style] (PA) [http://vs. Serial Attention (SA); Hunter vs. Farmer|http://vs. Serial Attention (SA); Hunter vs. Farmer]
- Parallel Attention Ability (PAA)
- Parallel Processing Style (PPS)
- Wideband Attention Style (WAS)
- Broadband Attention Style (BAS)
- High Bandwidth Attention (HBA)
- Multi-Tasking Mindset (MTMS)
- Multi-Channeled Attention Style (MCAS)
- Multi-Focus Attention Style (MFAS)
- Attention Dilution Disorder (ADD) [where it is in fact a debilitating disorder]
- Over-Active Attention (OAA)
- etc.
As our knowledge and understanding and body of experimentation and research grows on this, we may actually come to understand it a personality and HR feature, instead of necessarily as a dis-ability or bug or problem. It may in fact turn up as a *requirement* or *skill* for certain job candidates, for positions where people possessing this/these trait(s) excel. At the least, I believe our conception of it will be a little more akin to other neutral "traits" much like our conception of a car can be that of an enabler for travel, sustenance like getting groceries, protection from the elements, and culture like carrying books to libraries for children or in other hands a machine of destruction to property and life and atmosphere as a polluter. The car itself is neither here nor there, but the driver makes it so as do the varying methods one powers it with i.e. fossil fuels, hydrogen, electric, solar, hybrid, et cetera. The same with this attention style or "trait", some can learn to use it for great benefit while others are reckless with it or at its mercy.
Sincerely,
Jason M.W. Zawadzki
No, I'm not joking.
I believe the end result will be that people will simply freeze up and not be able to move from in front of the monitor. Only after a bunch of people die from starvation this way will corporations finally wake up and take action - not before.
I love travelling ( and does as often as possible) because then I don't feel any pressure - the same when I'm on holiday. I'll try with my wifes help (she is clever) I just told her yesterday about my ADT to help the condition by leaving my laptop behind when we're off for X-mas - on holiday or travelling. I guess there are only one cure and that's doing one thing at a time and not a dozen.
Bye from a newly recognised case of ADT
He change subject if confronted - mostly to good things he did himself like buying sweets or helped someone to solve a problem due to his skills. He has difficulties looking at you when you speak to him ( eye-contact). Being bored if you try to tell him something which happend during the day - Will usually leave the room before I'll finish the small talk. Freezes and doing nothing if having a problem- like need him to slap my back, if I swallow wrong Becomes very angry with me, if doing things wrongly on the PC. Told me once : Don*t ever get better on the Internet than me !!!!!
He did not want me to return so soon from the Clinic after a hernia operation. He admitted to me that he did not know what to do - was scared and could not cope. Even though he left the next morning (Saturday to take a small trip - and returned late afternoon).
He never tells me a compliment , for example if the food is good - or the house is decorated nicely for X-mas or the like. But he surely will tell you if there is less sugar in his coffee. Or if an outfit he thinks looks bad on me. He loves to speak about himself - BUT only the positive things - never about him having a problem. His standard phrase is : I want to enjoy !!!
He is very intilligent and highly educated and a sort of lexicon. He knows a lot and can remember a lot except the daily" small "things. I can write dow on a pc of paper what he has to remember to do ( his personal things ), he forgets even to look at the list. An I could go on and on. This is nearly costing our marriage of 20 years - but for me it was a big step that he told me he thought he was having ADT. What can I do to HELP ? and how can he improve ??
Thank you
PS. He is very liked bycolleagues, friends and family . He has a very good heart and loves animals a lot. He acts also at times very childish and wants to be treated like a child at times.
When I read this it sound like he's not such a nice person - but he is- but this is really a problem which I'm not sure I can take much more.
He wont talk to the Doctor about it - it's not the time. It's always not the time. Other of his standards phrases are Not now - or wait or later.
The latter is also when doing work - he has difficulties finishing it - and gets upset if I mention it.
He has so many good intention to send a card/note if somebody celebartes or the like . He buys the card but will nearly never write it, so mostly I'll do it for him. Anything which has to be fixed in our house I have to do. He can't or are too lazy to do it. He is very good at making others to work for him. Called for example a collegue to clean the sink which was stopped.( I was away visiting my family). He's very fluent in Enlish and if I write he searh to see if I have made any mistakes. It's not my mother tongue
Well, that's a lot but surely not all.
Do comment on the above Please if you have any suggestions to help this huge problem.
Thank you !
Interesting article by the way.