ADD.
We all know it as “attention deficit disorder.”
Let’s add in another way to understand that acronym: “addiction to digital devices.”
As leading neuroscientist Richie Davidson (see our Notes on his great book The Emotional Life of Your Brain) says, we’re ALL experiencing a little ADD.
We echoed Davidson’s thoughts on the subject in another recent Note. Here’s how leading creativity researcher, Scott Barry Kaufman, puts it in Wired to Create: “Neuroscientist Richard Davidson has said that the way we live today is causing a ‘national attention deficit,’ while researcher Linda Stone warns that modern life is increasingly lived within a state of ‘continuous partial attention.’ Most of us know that state all too well—we’re continually having our attention pulled away from the task at hand by notifications, alerts, calls, texts, emails, and other digital stimulation. Stone explains, ‘In large doses, [continuous partial attention] contributes to a stressful lifestyle, to operating in crisis management mode, and to a compromised ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively. In a 24/7, always-on world, continuous partial attention used as our dominant attention mode contributes to a feeling of overwhelm, overstimulation and to a sense of being unfulfilled.’”
And, of course, we talk about this in more depth in Adam Alter’s Irresistible. He echoes the perspective that using digital devices is a lot like using drugs.
Only he shines a light on the CREATORS of the technology. He tells us about the fact that Steve Jobs and a number of other top attention economy execs don’t let their own kids use their own devices. And says: “It seemed as if the people producing tech products were following the cardinal rule of drug dealing: never get high on your own supply. This is unsettling. Why are the world’s greatest public technocrats also its greatest private technophobes? Can you imagine the outcry if religious leaders refused to let their children practice religion?”
So, what’s the effect on this “continuous partial addiction” on our relationships?
Easy. It’s toxic.
If we’re constantly distracted by a digital device there is NO WAY we’ll be able to connect as deeply as we’d like.
So… Step 1. Limit your digital devices when/if you want to connect deeply. Period.
P.S. Michael tells us: “Public radio host and conversation expert Celeste Headlee advises: ‘Many of you have already heard a lot of advice on this, things like look the person in the eye, … look, nod, and smile to show that you’re paying attention. I want you to forget all of that. It is crap. There is no reason to learn how to show you’re paying attention if you are in fact paying attention.’”
← That’s fantastic. :)
P.P.S. At the beginning of this section on “Overcoming ADD,” Michael shares a brilliant thought from Herbert Simon—a psychologist and Nobel Laureate in Economics who helped create our understanding of “attention economics.”
Simon tells us: “…information consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”
Guess when he wrote that. 1971. I wasn’t born yet. TVs had a few stations. Newspapers were delivered to your door step. VHS hadn’t even been invented yet.
What would he say about our situation TODAY?
Now, here’s the thing. It’s easy to read that quote and say, “Wow. Yah. That guy was wise. So true.” And then go on utterly destroying our attention as we indiscriminately consume an astonishing amount of meaningless incoming data.
Recall that in The Checklist Manifesto we talked about the reasons we err. We have three basic reasons. 1. Necessary fallibility: Some things are just beyond our capacity; 2. Ignorance: Some times we just don’t know how to do something; and, 3. Ineptitude: Some times we KNOW what to do, we just don’t do it.
I think it’s pretty safe to say we all know some things we *could* be doing to more wisely allocate our attention. So… What are they?
What’s ONE thing you know you *could* be doing to Optimize your attention? Is today a good day to move from theory to practice on it? From ineptitude to mastery?