There are many who are concerned now that with so many different gadgets around, our attention span is suffering – what you are going already? Apparently we humans can only stay focused for 8 seconds now, although in 2000 it was possible for 12 seconds, before we become distracted by text messages, facebook, the news, and even once in a while even a phone call.
A study lead by De Montfort University has gone even further, directly linking the number of times a person uses the internet or gadgets with the likelihood of experiencing a range of “cognitive failures”, or mental blunders.
The study shows that the most digitally active people are more distracted because of their excessive online activity. The researcher, Dr Lee Hadlington, suspects a vicious circle: that individuals become even more distractible because they become overly reliant on their mobile devices…
I think there is a lot of validity in this. Just look around, people are always checking this or that on various devices, walking and texting (where at one time it was actually walking and talking on a phone!). We are using the latest technology and gadgets constantly and so easily get distracted from the project on hand to check out the social media sites, or the latest news.
However, it is also said that keeping our brains active encourages our creativity, but according to Josh Davis, director of research at the NeuroLeadership Institute in New York, there is a mistake that many of us, if not all of us are making
when we take a break from ‘work information’ we replace it with an endless stream of information from social media or the news or whatever else. Digital breaks don’t have an end point – you can spend hours flitting around and then you feel overloaded.
And the type of information you are consuming can have a big impact on your frame of mind too. But Davis does have a solution.
Davis recommends to take a non-digital breaks during the day, when you are walking or sitting in a coffee.
To read more click here, but maybe you’ve already moved on…
http://sentinelrepublic.com/is-it-true-that-gadgets-make-us-unhappy-and-less-focused/88629/