A Dirty Toe?
I am a fan of technology - especially the kind which eases communication between people. For that reason the Internet and the myriad of devices that connect to it are mostly of benefit to our world. They bring people closer together by easing our ability to share ideas and, consequently, exposing us to disparate ideas. Together we get a broader view of the world. All good. Mostly.
While I was working one of the topics that would often come up at the lunch table was attention deficit disorder (ADD). Many of us felt that we were becoming less and less able to focus on a subject or task for more than five minutes. We could each say that we were constantly interrupted by telephone calls, email messages, chats on a messaging system, or someone walking into our cubicles. All of those are external events however. The more disturbing kind was that, even if none of these external events occurred in the five minute period, our brains would cause an interruption. Our thoughts would wander to the next meeting, the next task, an upcoming event. We would want to check the news, weather, stock quotes, etc. We all suffered from ADD.
The issue is that technology has eased our ability to access information on demand. Our behaviour has been conditioned to not only expect an interruption but to create its own. This morning while taking my shower I spent the five minutes thinking about last night's discussion with my daughter, thinking about what we'd eat tonight, what my next job might be, the fact that I had to go food shopping. I did not concentrate on showering. Then later, when I awoke my MacBook from its slumber to write in this blog I first checked email, chatted with someone and read the news. My objective was not to do all of those things...simply to write in my blog. In fact I am listening to music and awaiting an answer from a friend in a chat window while writing this.
When I read my mind often wanders. When I think my mind often wanders.
Technology in many ways has facilitated this occurrence. When all I had to write was a paper and pen, when I had to walk to the corner store to by the newspaper to get news I did not expect updates on world events on an minute by minute basis. I wouldn't have a news or stock ticker on my laptop. Now television stations have news, sports and weather tickers running across the bottom of their broadcasts. Interestingly the tickers disappear during adverts. Clearly the advertisers are fully aware that we would not be focusing all of our attention on the qualities of their products if tickers were flowing by.
The impact of all this is that we are spastic in our thoughts. We lack continuum in our thoughts. We are less efficient and we do not complete tasks with attention. The quality of our results is affected and all of this happens almost subconsciously.
Did I wash my pinky toe this morning? I don't know.
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