Are You With Me Here? Continuous Partial Attention Is Making Communications Less Effective and More Superficial
Steven Levy, in this week’s Newsweek, has written an article about how computers and Blackberries have created an epidemic of people infected with “continuous partial attention”, a term coined by Linda Stone, a former Apple and Microsoft Executive.
Levy, chief technology writer for Newsweek, aptly comments that “Carrying a Blackberry is admitting that your commitment to your current activity is only partial.” Levy mentions that he has been to Google’s offices, and has seen effective multitasking by engineers with two screens – one for work in progress, and another for collaboration via email, IM etc. It may be a boon to them, but what about the rest of us?
So often what we experience is the little concert of dancing thumbs of the super busy, multi-channelers bent over their Blackberries while we try to get a point across in a meeting. And there’s no way they’re taking notes on what we’re saying! They’re “making good use of their time” where everything seems to be a crisis and nothing ever seems to get even a small amount of undivided attention. Some things need it – people need it in conversations, and presenters need it in meetings and seminars. Competing with constant messages in a job interview or performance review is a ridiculous and insulting. Constant Blackberry use in these situations is as bad form as obviously checking your watch every few minutes.
People need to make choices and decide what activities they have to decline. The ones they choose to do will be of higher quality, more focused and less superficial.
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