Throughout this week’s readings, I found myself thinking “That is so me” whilst reading about general smartphone habits and the impact of the Internet’s constant visual stimuli on our neurological functioning.
Through Harvard Business Review writers Adrian F. Ward, Kristen Duke, Ayelet Gneezy, and Maarten W. Bos’s study of smartphones’ effect on cognitive ability and behavior, we learn that even when our devices are not present, their absence can cause just as much of a distraction. The authors’ experiment involved 800 participants who each completed a series of simple math problems, memorization exercises, and completion patterns. The difference between the highest performing participants and those who performed poorly had to do with the location of their smartphone devices. Those whose phones were kept in their pockets or on desks nearby did not perform nearly as well as those who kept their phones in an entirely separate room. The fact that the seeming absence of distracting factors (in this case, smartphones) can actually cause further distraction is worth noting. According to the experiment and what we can learn about cognitive psychology, we are programmed to turn our attention almost immediately to sources that pertain to us (i.e. a text message or a “like” on social media) even while engaged in an entirely different activity, such as homework or deep work. While reading Cal Newport’s Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, I could occasionally feel my mind wander to my phone and who may or may not have texted me while I was busy reading. I realize this is a bit ironic considering the nature of this course. I named this blog post “Dividing and Conquering” because of the solutions provided by the various authors and deep workers who address the challenge of remaining active, diligent readers in the Internet Age. A key component in being successful in deep work is learning how to separate or divide oneself from distractions, digital or otherwise, and focus totally on the task at hand. In Michael Harris’s opinion piece “I have forgotten how to read,” he cites an excerpt from fellow author Nicholas Carr’s “The Shallows,” which states that “digital technologies are training us to be more conscious of and more antagonistic toward delays of all sorts." In order to get back to a pre-Internet type of focus as it pertains to reading, Harris says we must adjust our reading habits. The idea of changing our reading habits for the better is discussed at length in the Farnam Street article “How to Remember What You Read.” The author shares effective reading behaviors of active readers, versus the habits of passive readers, such as choosing the right book, note-taking, and annotating while reading. Rather than simply skimming over words, active readers are encouraged to immerse themselves into the pages by teaching themselves, and then others, the information.
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