2023-06-03 14:52:35
Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Dr. Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, who studies how digital media affects our lives, points out in her book “Attention Range: A Pioneering Method for Restoring Balance, Happiness, and Productivity,” that “a lot of Some of us have ‘distracted days’, and she explains how decades of research has tracked a decline in the ability to focus.
“In 2004, we measured the average screen focus to be the equivalent of two and a half minutes,” Mark said. “After a few years, we found that the attention span was around 75 seconds. We now find that people can only pay attention to one screen for an average of 47 seconds.”
Mark noted that not only do people focus for less than a minute on a single screen, but when their attention is diverted from an active work project, they take about 25 minutes to refocus on that task.
“In fact, our research shows that it takes 25 minutes and 26 seconds before an individual returns to their original line of work or project,” Mark added.
Why is the focus period short?
In this regard, Mark explained, “If we look at work in terms of switching projects, rather than partial view of switching screens, we find that people spend about 10 and a half minutes on any work project before they are interrupted, internally or by someone else, and then they move on to another work project “.
But then, shall we go back to the original work? Mark replied, “No.” Instead, when we get interrupted on Project Two, we switch back to a different task, let’s call it Project Three. And her research showed that we are also interrupted in the third project, so we move on to the fourth project.
Then Mark said, “We go back and work on the original project that was interrupted. But it’s not like you’re interrupted and you’re not doing any work? You’ve actually been working on other things for over 25 minutes.”
“However, there is also a switching cost, the time it takes to reorient yourself to your work: ‘Where have you been? What was I thinking?’ That extra effort can also lead to errors and stress,” Mark added.
How do you focus?
Why is that a problem? Ultimately, some call it multitasking, and many believe it is a valuable skill for handling the demands of the information age.
“With the exception of a few rare individuals, there is no such thing as multitasking,” Mark explained. “Unless one task is automatic, like chewing gum or walking, you can’t do two demanding tasks at the same time.”
She noted that you cannot read email and participate in a video meeting. When you focus on one thing, you miss the other. “You actually shift your attention very quickly between the two. And when you shift your attention quickly, that’s associated with stress,” Mark explained. This leads to high blood pressure. The heart rate accelerates.
She said psychological measures of stress also show negative outcomes, such as more fatigue, mistakes and lower productivity: “The more people multitask, the more mistakes they make.”
Who did this to us? We did it ourselves, of course, with the help of technology culprits like social media, tablets, and television. But Mark blames the email more than anyone else.
“For me, email is probably the worst because it has become a symbol of work,” she said, adding that her research has found a direct link between email and more stress.
“We stopped emailing some employees in an organization for one workweek,” she said, “and used heart rate monitors, and found that they became less stressed, and were able to focus significantly longer.”
“There is no way for anyone to be completely cut off from technology and work in today’s world. So let’s learn to live with it in a way that maintains our positive well-being,” Mark said.
Steps that enhance your focus?
Mark explained that regaining your focus requires you to become aware of how you use technology, which is a daunting task if you consider that the average American spends 10 hours a day on screens, at the very least.
Ironically, you can use technology to help, she said. Schedule work for the earlier part of the day when you’re not fully alert, then use technology to reduce distractions when you’re at your mental best. At night, clear your mind of tasks by writing them down and putting the list aside.
Is social media distracting you? Mark recommends hiding them: “Remove icons from your computer, put the apps on your phone into files, so it takes an extra bit of effort to find them. Leave your phone in another room or put it in a drawer and lock it.”
It is also important to know when to take a break. She said, “If you have to read something more than once or if the words just don’t register, it’s time to stop and renew (the energy).”
The best break she recommends is a walk in nature: “Just a 20-minute walk in nature can be very relaxing for people.” And she continued, “We found that it can help people produce significantly more ideas, and this is called divergent thinking.”
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