Digital distraction

Students these days are less literate and less healthy than their parents, for the first time in about a century – or so I’ve been informed. The reasons behind an unwelcome turn such as this are many and complex, but it seems apparent that less sustained reading and exercise along with more immediate and easy gratification are contributors. We are a screen-staring (computer, TV, ipod, iphone), easy-access, connectivity-dependent, distracted digital nation.

At a presentation I attended in mid-September, the claim was offered that "Electronic media are radically changing the way this generation of students thinks, learns and socializes–perhaps for the better, perhaps not." [*Research does support some positives to e-media and multitasking; see the footnote below.] Some featured segments from Frontline‘s “Digital Nation” broadcast made the case, and research supports, that multitasking – made easier in some ways by technology, and practiced extensively by college students in the broadcast (who talked about writing one awesome paragraph followed by another awesome paragraph after interruption of tending to a text or social network site or google lookup, but with a resulting paper that was nonsensically unconnected) and attempted by many of us much of the time, this multitasking – is a practice that actually hampers the ability to accomplish tasks and alters the brain functioning of the multitasker.

Here's a taste of the research:

The Seattle Times, Nation & World, June 6, 2010 summarizes some research of a Stanford team: “Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.” (research of Ophir, Nass, Wagner http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/08/21/0903620106.abstract) .

And “A study at the University of California, Irvine, found that people interrupted by e-mail reported significantly increased stress compared with those left to focus. Stress hormones have been shown to reduce short-term memory, said Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).” Dr. Small asserts, in a Psychology Today blog “Brain Bootcamp” Oct 4, 2009: “When paying partial continuous attention, people may place their brains in a heightened state of stress. They no longer have time to reflect, contemplate or make thoughtful decisions. Instead, they exist in a sense of constant crisis - on alert for a new contact or bit of exciting news or information at any moment. And, once people get used to it, they tend to thrive on the perpetual connectivity. It feeds their egos and sense of self-worth, and it becomes irresistible.”

Boss friend Christopher questions - in his "Technology and Distraction" blog post of Sept 21 – whether technology per se was to blame for the "Digital Nation" students’ multitasking. "One key lesson that I gleaned from the history of technology is that problems that seem to be technological are often actually social problems ... As one historian famously said, technologies are “frozen politics” – social decisions, capacities, knowledge, resources that have been literally engineered into a tangible form... then, we should shift blame away from our technologies – with their seductive screens and sounds – and toward our own individual and collective decision-making."

Affected especially by technology are digital natives – young people born into a world of laptops and cell phones, text messaging and twittering — who spend an average of 8 1/2 hours each day exposed to digital technology. But so are us older digital immigrants who live with this rapid pace of information. We are almost all enticed by perpetual connectivity, have egos that want to be fed, and are easily side-tracked.

Maybe that helps explain why we so often choose distraction and the doing of tasks over focused attentiveness and being quietly still. I am often frustrated with my frenetic tendencies of doing. Yet I recognize, and encourage you also to consider, that there is huge benefit in just sitting, in quieting the stimuli, in being silent. No matter that our culture doesn't easily acknowledge it.

Consider these quotes:

“It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and my sister.” – Thomas Merton

The Psalmist relays the heart of God when he says, “Be still and know that I am…” (Psalm 46:10a), and encourages, “…commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.” Psalm 4:4

Mother Teresa was quoted as saying, “God is the friend of silence. See how nature--trees, flowers, grass--grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...”

“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, if may be, their own image and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.” – William Butler Yeats

Look for more on the benefits of silent stillness in the near future...

*Some positives of digital technology: Preliminary research shows some people can more easily juggle multiple information streams. These "supertaskers" represent less than 3 percent of the population, according to scientists at the University of Utah. Other research shows computer use has neurological advantages. In imaging studies, Gary Small at UCLA observed that Internet users showed greater brain activity than nonusers, suggesting they were growing their neural circuitry. At the University of Rochester, researchers found that players of some fast-paced video games could track the movement of a third more objects on a screen than nonplayers. They say the games can improve reaction and the ability to pick out details amid clutter.