Wise Attention Choices

Society implies that it is your civic and moral duty to keep abreast of every tidbit of news and current events. Yet, in this era more, information is generated on earth in one second than you can take in the rest of your life.

The notion that you can watch the news, read the paper, or scan the Web to catch up on events is erroneous. You can only keep abreast of a small amount of information. So make wise choices about where you want to offer your time and attention.

Interruptions Lower IQs

From an article in New Scientist magazine, April, 30 2005:

The next time your boss complains you are not focused enough, blame it on email and phone calls. Even smoking dope has less effect on your ability to concentrate on the task in hand.

At least that's what Glenn Wilson, a psychiatrist King's College London, found when he and his team asked 80 volunteers to carry out problem-solving tasks, first in a quiet environment and then while being bombarded with emails and phone calls.

Despite being told to ignore the interruptions, the average IQ of the volunteers dropped by about 10 points. Not everyone was equally affected - men were twice as distracted as women. Studies have also shown that IQs of people high on pot drop by only 5 points.

"If left unchecked, 'infomania' will damage a worker's performance by reducing their mental sharpness," says Wilson. "This is a very real and widespread phenomenon." Information overload can reduce a person's ability to focus as much as losing a night's sleep can, he adds.

Eliminate the Extraneous

When you're besieged by information on a continual basis, you begin to feel overwhelmed, which leads to the feeling of over-work and stress. If you're able to eliminate a lot of the extraneous information that makes its way to you, you will actually experience being overwhelmed less frequently, and you will not feel as over-worked. Try getting off mailing lists and dropping most subscriptions, avoiding extraneous information whenever you can.