Sunday 6 January 2013
'Blooming, buzzing confusion', switchtasking and 'sometimes reinforcements'.
Tomorrow I go back to work after a two week break and, as usual, I dread the thought of it and kind of look forward to it at the same time.
Like most people I love being on holiday. We live in a stunning location in rural Aberdeenshire. In 2012 we improved and modernised existing rooms in the steading (barn) attached to our cottage and this festive period has been even better with the luxury of the new living areas. I could quite happily work from this home!
As some of you know, I'm the Principal Teacher of History at a secondary school (12 - 18 year olds) and I get great satisfaction from teaching. I love my subject and the pupils make the job. They are often an inspiration to me. Yes, all of us in education face the continuous interference from politicians and so called 'experts' who force on us ever more 'new thinking' and 'new approaches' which can seem totally at odds with what your particular school and pupils actually need. But at the end of the day, it is a far preferable job to the one I did for 14 years in the oil industry.
So, returning to work brings things to look forward to and things that I could do without in my life.
But here's what gets me the most about the end of holidays - all the books and magazines not read; all the movies not watched; all the blogs and websites not read; all the walks not taken; all the photographs not taken; all the friends and relatives not visited; all the stuff still on my 'to do' list! Clearly I was unrealistic about what I could do during what is a busy holiday anyway. Worst still, there are so many distractions nowadays.
I'm currently reading The Pleasures of Reading in an Ages of Distraction by Alan Jacobs. A few years ago I was trying to speed up my reading but Jacobs explains why you shouldn't if you really want to get more from what you're reading apart from just uploading information to our brains without giving time to consolidate and consider the information. Reading will always seem slow if all you want to do is pass your eyes over page after page and tick the book off as 'read'.
However, reading slower will mean I will get through less pages before I'm distracted by Facebook, twitter, Flickr, emails, cats, the scenery, the need to get outside! Technology has brought 'intermittent reinforcements' as B.F Skinner calls it, into my life and to rid myself of most of them, I'll have to alter my habits. It's this 'sometimes reinforcements' that causes the 'addiction' to keep checking social media.
'The philosopher William James famously wrote of the "blooming, buzzing confusion" that constitutes sensuous experience for babies, who have not yet developed the filters necessary to organise that experience into discrete and meaningful units, but our daily technologies threaten to return us all to virtual babyhood"(my italics). [Jacobs, p.79]
Lately, I've been feeling this 'blooming and buzzing' has had an impact on my reading - not only the quantity but also the quality. My mind drifts much easier than it used to. This blog post is admitting my awareness of the 'condition' and how I want to do something to address the imbalance.
Essentially, I need to make it difficult if not impossible to go online for part of my day/week so I can get back to quality reading, studying, thinking and doing. Many years ago, I managed to stop smoking and drinking so surely I can do this? Jacobs talks about e-readers like Kindle which place emphasis on the text and 'hiding' the 'connect' command. ( I don't have a Kindle so can't comment on this.) So technology can be part of the solution, but I fear I may be too distracted still. I can't multitask, not because I'm a male; no, it's because none of us can, according to new research. Dave Crenshaw points out that genuine multitasking is impossible and a more accurate term is 'switchtasking'. We are really in a state of 'continuous partial attention'. Boy, does that describe perfectly how I felt much of the time in 2012!
At the moment, I'm still working on how to use social media and the internet to keep me informed, educate me, entertain me, promote me but not distract me so much. I will be 'experimenting' with possible solutions this year which may see me on Facebook and twitter a lot less but then again, ...
To be continued (and hopefully resolved).
Well done if you managed to read all this without getting distracted!
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2 comments:
Completely agree with this James, it's probably a fair summary for most of us I think. My list of to-dos gets ever longer, as is my reading list. To my credit I did make a conscious effort in 2012 to become more focused on the right things (rather than just bimbling through life expecting it all to just work out) but still there was much time, and quality time at that, lost to perpetual distraction. I've managed to greatly reduce my TV watching but that normally means heading to the computer where distractions abound rather than finding a quite corner and working through a book.
I find my iPhone and iPad are the peak of this curse - new distractions and content are but an arm movement away. If an idea pops into my head, or I'm "bored" I reach for it instinctively. Even good conversation with friends is ruined by the instinct to "google it" or "wikipedia it" rather than just enjoying the conversation.
And yes, I do wonder if eBooks are a problem here. Certainly for me most of mine are read on my always connected iPad and so if something pops into my head while I'm reading, I'm off on Safari hunting it down!
The problem of "context switching" (as it's often called in my arena) in software development is well acknowledged (tho incredibly poorly acted on), the fact that once you're "in flow" any distraction requires 30 minutes to get back into flow (possibly this might not quite apply to e.g. reading to the same extent it does to "creating"). And if you're truly multi-tasking (expecting to work on two projects at once), then you don't go at 50% on each, rather you go 25% on each and the other 50% is completely lost to context switching. They say when you get to 3 or 4 truly simultaneous tasks that almost all of the time is lost to task switching.
The other thing to consider here, when it comes to "thought work" is that it's not just the time you spend on "tasks" that contributes. The time away where you're mind is still buzzing is important, to allow those "eureka" breakthroughs to happen. If your head is filled with problems rather than just one, then it searches for a way to idle (TV, etc) to escape, where a single problem would maintain constant attention in the back of your mind.
All in all, trying to stick to one thing is super important. As a man, my wife keeps reminding me, this is even important as when it comes to two things on my plate I go all puzzled looking!
So, I'm totally with you for trying to be more intentional, more focused and less distracted for 2013 and working through that to-do list and list of books. In a quiet corner, with a coffee and no gadgets in sight.
Hope your return to work isn't as bad as you fear!
ps sorry, I did get distracted halfway through - my iPhone vibrated with tweets :(
Hi Duncan,
Thanks for that thoughtful and considered comment.
I was interested to read recently of 'young people' playing more board games and wanting to be in physical company, not virtual. I can get the feeling sometimes that we are all just getting used to social media in our lives and it's not taking up so much of our time as it once did.
It still has an element of addiction, i.e. the regular checking back in to see if there has been any activity, but I sense more people walking away from the screen and turning back to the real world.
Anyway, I'm off to read more of my book. Cheers.
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