What Attention Span?
by Mynette Black
This has taken me one full day to get to the first sentence of my entry because of distractions and other deadlines, which gave me the idea of writing about our ever shrinking attention spans, or maybe just mine…
Of course in the world of a busy workload, constant incoming calls, emails, meetings, brainstorms, etc, we have a fair share of elements that beg for our immediate attention, regardless of what is currently underway. Multitasking is a prerequisite in this industry.
Now remove yourself from the office for the sake of this thought process, and think of the last time you were able to eat dinner without an interruption, or drive a few miles without checking your blackberry, or for a night out with friends for dinner, not one person took out their phones to text, email, or answer a call? As a child, how did I ever make it on a family road trip without having my personal TV in the back of my mom’s seat for unlimited DVD viewing, an ipod, or constant text messaging telling my friends how much fun I was having in the back of the car for 15 hours? Trust me, this would have helped my parents’ sanity had I been entertained on these trips, but it wasn’t available then.
I just caught myself on Monday eating dinner in front of the TV with my laptop on my lap, finishing a project, answering a call on my cell. This is not something new uncommon, nor did it come with the introduction WiFi, Blackberries or iPhones. Think about this: drive-thrus were invented for convenience, for those of us who think we can multitask, for those of us who need shortcuts to save time. We squeeze as much as we can out of a 24 hour day; what used to be a ritual, dinner in the home with the family, is one element of our double timing duties. In my opinion, the drive-thru began the onslaught of our shrinking attention spans, but that is a whole new story for a new day.
At least there are laws regulating where we can attempt to do more than one thing at a time in some states. For example, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety there is a ban on using hand-held cell phones while driving in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Utah, and in DC. At least in those states, they are restricting this lack of attention to one task, driving, to avoid causing harm to others.
Have I lost you yet?
Take your attention span test to see where you rank or if you want to give yourself a headache, try this one on for size.
FYI, the total number of times I left this incomplete word document open to tend to other things and return to a half typed thought: 18, but I did meet the deadline.