I just read the article "Does the internet make you dumber?" In short, I cannot say that I disagree with the premise.
With every passing year I feel like the attention span of my colleagues, even myself, gets shorter. My presumption, based on no scientific evidence, was that it is because the world is increasingly living sound bite by sound bite. Hence, reading this article has resonated with me.
Everyday in my office place I see folks walking through the halls while staring at their smart phones, sitting in meetings pouring over the email on their laptop, seemingly only focusing on the discussions at hand for moments at a time, and ultimately making snap decisions before moving on to the next fleeting thought. I have always believed that the more we thrive on tweets, quick posts, text messages, and even short YouTube clips that the more we train our brains to limit our attention span. Reading the line, "we are at risk of losing as we spend ever more time scanning and skimming online", while scary, seems to be spot on, at least in my own experience.
It makes me think of the old axiom about "quality not quantity", and this new digital age anchored in a multitude of short sound bites and quick clips certainly seems to be lending itself towards a culture of "skimming" that requires little to no sustained focus or critical thinking and could ultimately lead to a deterioration of our cognitive abilities.
On the other hand, I hope that the tremendous volume of information to which we are exposed more than makes up the difference!
I used to insist that all mobile devices and laptops were off in meetings. That was pre-tablet. I'm not sure how I would handle it now. But, if the meeting doesn't require full attention maybe it doesn't need to occur?
ReplyDeleteGood point. I can definitely vouch that I spend a lot of time in meetings that are of little to no value. But it can be sort of a catch 22 situation -- the meetings become little to no value the more that people are on their tablet and laptops.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, given that I must spent over half of my work week in meetings, I generally live by this rule: if a meeting cannot start without you, then you don't need to attend.