Balance, what balance?

It will come as news to few readers that many folks find themselves subject to constant distraction, whether from incoming emails, temptations to websurf, phonecalls, or just having too much to do. The technical term is "cognitive overload," and this article demonstrates the need to keep fighting for focus and sanity.

In fact, multitasking — a computing term that involves doing, or trying to do, more than one thing at once — has cemented itself into our daily lives and is intensely studied. Research has shown it to be consistently counterproductive, often foolish, unhealthy in the long run, and in the case of gabbing on the cell phone while driving, relatively dangerous. Yet it is also expected, encouraged and basically essential.

This guy (David Levy) organized a conference called "Information, Silence and Sanctuary," and is setting up a "Center for Information and the Quality of Life" to study sources of overload and strategies to fight it. Or really, even to measure success in doing so (is it productivity? lack of heart-attacks? longer marriages??)...

"We have so many options, reward centers that we never had before," says John Ratey, who teaches at Harvard and is a psychiatrist specializing in attention deficit disorder. "I think that's why we're seeing more of this. There are more demands on our attention and less training for us to stop and take it all in. We seem to be amazing ourselves to death."

Um, back to work now, I suppose. ;)

(via Medley's furlings)