(continued from previous page)
executives in corporations as opposed to people working at Burger King or something, then I think you're talking 30, 35, 40 percent.
You say technology in the form of e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging and so on is fueling this phenomenon. It's ironic that the information age is making a lot of us dimmer, isn't it?
Hallowell: Absolutely. Technology is a great blessing. It is behind much of our progress. But if we're not careful with it, it can start running us ragged. This is the person who spends the day responding to e-mail and voice mail; the person who allows himself to be interrupted by the cell phone during an important meeting; the person who stays up late at night because he can't log off the Internet. We need to take charge of it. Right now, it's taking charge of us. We need to preserve time to stop and think.
If you don't allow yourself to stop and think, you're not getting the best of your brain. What your brain is best equipped to do is to think, to analyze, to dissect and create. And if you're simply responding to bits of stimulation, you won't ever go deep.
Hallowell: No one really multitasks. You just spend less time on any one thing. When it looks like you're multitasking--you're looking at one TV screen and another TV screen and you're talking on the telephone--your attention has to shift from one to the other. You're brain literally can't multitask. You can't pay attention to two things simultaneously. You're switching back and forth between the two. So you're paying less concerted attention to either one.
I think in general, why some people can do well at what they call multitasking is because the effort to do it is so stimulating. You get adrenaline pumping that helps focus your mind. What you're really doing is focusing better at brief spurts on each stimulus. So you don't get bored with either one.
You have cited software maker SAS as an example of a company actively promoting a more connected, humane workplace, with perks like a seven-hour workday and on-site day care. The interesting thing is that it is a private company and doesn't have to answer to Wall Street. Aren't most publicly traded companies too paranoid and bottom-line-driven for such niceties?
Hallowell: And yet (SAS) is highly profitable. Its bottom line is robust. It's just that it doesn't have to meet quarterly numbers. It's almost a metaphor for the problem. If you're only working from quarter to quarter, then it's very hard to have a long-range strategy. Hard to weather when you take a dip. This quarter-to-quarter management succeeds in the short term but fails in the long term.
Do you see a broader corporate backlash against this type of work environment, or do you think it will be up to individuals to manage it?
Hallowell: I think the people in charge will catch on and will take steps. You reach a point of red alert, in which the brain starts to steam and bells go off and whistles go off and people start quitting and productivity declines. We're not quite there yet. I think the smart companies are catching on.
Any examples jump to mind?
Hallowell: I was talking to someone who runs a huge fund in New York, and he was saying he demands that his employees take several days a month just to think--to leave the office and just
See more CNET content tagged:
attention, workplace
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.
- by Sureshstrasbourg December 17, 2008 12:29 AM PST
- Wife writes : I forgot to tell that he also has much difficulties in getting ready whenever we are going somewhere. I have to repeat over and over again please do hurry . Also mornings he takes a very long time to wake up and always wants 2-5 min more before very sour gets his coffe in bed - and all his clothes are laid out for him - as he always will ask : What shall I wear today ? I'm not allowed to disagree and whenever I say this is like that he will always reply NO - at first even et's so. Always contradicting me. I'm not having as much education as him - though rather educated. He at times says : You're not an Acedemic and I know better - even he does not, but he wants to be right and will not admit if he's wrong but excuses it with a lame excuse why he said so. Should I be wrong which of course I am at times- all humans are wrong at times and I have no problem admitting it - but he triumphs like it was a victory won - and likes to remind me that I was wrong.
- Reply to this comment
-
(23 Comments)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 !