Are We Distracted, or Are We Just Bored?

A recent article in the New York Times, entitled, "Hooked on Gadgets, and Paying a Mental Price," talks about the stress of multitasking and how it causes us to lose focus. This is but the latest in a series of articles alarming readers to how distracted we have become and how multitasking doesn't really work for most people. While I agree with the basic premise, I also hear the drumbeat of a new (or not so new) trend hearkening, accompanied by a bevy of self-help books, self-crowned experts, and a never-ending series of talk shows and magazine articles. Central to this trend are the following points:

• The plethora of digital devices vying for our attention is driving us crazy.

• Ringing cell phones, pop-up alerts, and the constant barrage of tweets, instant messages, and Facebook updates is making it hard to concentrate

• The expectation to be "always on" is unhealthy and it ruins our ability to think creatively

I agree with all of these points. It seems to make sense and anyone who has all these devices can testify to the stress that accompanies the continuous stimulus.

On the other hand, ask yourself the following questions. In which situations are you more apt to check email and send text messages?

• At the ball park or at a family wedding?

• In the middle of a neighborhood basketball game or in the checkout line at the supermarket?

• While reading a book on the train to work or at your child's class play?

• While you are playing video games or while waiting at a traffic light?

My point is that while it is true that people have trouble "switching off," they are more likely to do so in situations where they are having fun and where they are mentally engaged. Part of the problem is that many of our daily tasks don't require deep concentration--they require prompt attention. Especially at work. We seem to be muddling through the day with all the bells and whistles going off, while somehow keeping all the balls in the air. More and more people at work are "connectors" -- basically, processing tasks and passing them off to the next person in the workflow. While it may be stressful to deal with all the stimuli, it is not necessarily performance constricting either.

At the end of the day, most people don't really need to be "always on." I believe that people do so because they are bored and lack mental stimulus. With all the buzzers and bells going off constantly, it is hard to focus on activities that are slow and uninteresting. Checking email offers a respite from the lull in stimulus. And here is where the problem lies ...

We are becoming a nation of people who can't focus on slow-moving activities, or activities that require contemplation. Therefore, we crave our digital distractions. Just look at our surroundings. Everything is boiled down into tidy sound bites, so that we don't lose interest and zap to the next channel or service. We used to get our news in ½ hour programs and in daily newspapers. Now, it's down to 3 minute podcasts and hyperlinked Web pages. While we seem to be inundated by more and more information, we end up knowing "more about less" than we ever did. Perhaps the digital distractions are shortening our attention span, but most people seem to be able to function when they are mentally or emotionally engaged. Try an experiment. Switch off the phone, the Blackberry, and the Internet, and pick up a good book (even an e-book for the sake of argument) and see how long you can remain focused. If you truly enjoy the book, you should be able to go for hours before the urge to check email pops up.

A new cadre of "productivity tools" is hitting the market--these tools temporarily block email and chat pop-ups, and our inhibit our ability to navigate to time-wasting Internet sites for a predefined time. These tools are supposed to help us focus. Some of these tools even plot our activities, so we can later analyze how much time we wasted and where the time went. Are we really that digitally-crippled that we can't manually turn off these interruptions in order to concentrate? Do we really need a software program to tell us where we wasted our time, thusly wasting even more time looking at its reports? Shouldn't we be able to tune out for at least a few hours a day?

So before we go back to our lists of tips about how to better manage our time, I think we need to take a look in the mirror and ask ourselves, what is the real cause of the itchy Blackberry thumb. I believe it has more to do with our being bored than it does with a requirement to perform in real-time. So maybe we should shut off the TV and the Internet and re-examine how we spend our day before we blame our digital devices.