Breakthrough Performance

One need not be a musician to appreciate the point. Engineers, scientists, doctors, lawyers, auditors, and many other professionals must put in countless tedious hours intently studying difficult material, not just to prepare for their careers, but also to sustain them. The popular television program “House” engages us with a colorful doctor who has an encyclopedic knowledge of medicine. But it fails to convey that such brilliance only comes after endless stretches of poring over complex medical journals.

The importance of sustained focus is also stressed in the book, “The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments.” Written by science writer George Johnson, it illustrates how significant scientific insights typically arrive only after years of grinding, repetitive lab work. The towers of achievement are often built upon a foundation of drudgery. In other words, for many of life’s crucial disciplines, having the right stuff means having tremendous powers of concentration.

This then raises the question, in an age where flourishing technology enables and fuels an escalating multitasking behavior pattern, will we lose our ability to focus? Will we cripple our capacity for performing the undistracted labors that underlies so much of the world’s critical work?

The devotees of constant connectivity typically dismiss such concerns. They correctly point out that most people in the above mentioned occupations are already tethered to laptops and smart phones and effectively use such tools them to improve their performance and increase their productivity. The defenders of managed distraction claim that multitasking skills can be developed, like playing the piano. Nothing to worry about. But is that the case?

Professor Clifford Nass of Stanford University has been studying multitasking and has made some disturbing discoveries. He shared them in an interview for the PBS “Frontline” episode “Digital Nation.” (The entire transcript of his interview can be found on the PBS web site.) Based on extensive lab tests, his most surprising revelation was that multitaskers are terrible at performing the three key aspects of multitasking: ignoring irrelevant information, holding information in an organized fashion, and effectively switching from one task to another. He found it ironic because virtually all multitaskers imagine that they are brilliant at it.

According to Nass, multitaskers typically take longer to complete tasks than people who do things one at a time. One reason is that multitaskers are easily distracted, but they are also slowed down by the “task switch cost,” the time it takes for the brain to reorient to a new task. More importantly, Nass sees multitasking hurting long-term memory and the capacity for analytical reasoning. He fears that extended multitasking may actually change brain function.

If Nass and other researchers who have found similar results are correct, then why isn’t the world falling apart? It may simply be too early, that the technology is too new to debilitate adults who developed attentiveness skills earlier in life. But what about the next generation? Today’s children are acquiring their devices of distraction long before they acquire their habits of study. Will they adjust? Or will they contract a technology-induced attention-deficit disorder that makes them unable to pursue a demanding profession such as engineering or science?

Perhaps the most sought-after business consultants in the future will be Zen masters, brought in to teach the lost art of concentration. Stay tuned.