Facebook’s not exactly the poster child of productivity. Quite the contrary, it’s one of the biggest time-wasters in the world, with hundreds of pieces of content and a whole plethora of time-wasting social games. What some people might not know is exactly how distracting it (and many other social media websites) really are – and just how much of a negative impact they can have on one’s workday.
And it’s not just Facebook.
A study back in April proved it: looking at Facebook even once while trying to work, study, or otherwise focus violently derails one’s train of thought, completely destroying one’s productivity. But there’s even more to it than that. A group of researchers working under Psychologist Larrry Rosen got together and had around 300 middle school, high school, and college students study something for a mere fifteen minutes, in their natural environment. What they found was that, on average, the students were only able to stay focused for three-minute stints. Even worse, all of the students who checked Facebook scored lower- even if they only checked it once.
Pull out all the productivity and efficiency applications you want- we’re still living in what essentially amounts to a culture of distraction. At every hour of every day, the majority of us are wondering what’s been posted on Facebook, what new tweets there are to check out, whether or not there’s new stuff on Reddit (there’s always new stuff on Reddit), if there are any new videos on YouTube, whether or not they’ve received any new text messages…
You get the idea. It’s a whole new level of perpetual distractedness. To make matters worse, technology is literally changing our brains and impacting the way we think. So…what can we do? Are applications and efficiency courses really enough to nip this issue in the bud? Can we really fix our distractedness with technology, when technology is part of the problem?
The short answer is no – not unless we’re willing to work towards a solution ourselves, as well.
Focus isn’t something you can be taught by a book, and good memory coupled with the ability to work efficiently aren’t abilities you can hone simply by purchasing or downloading a piece of software. They’re something we need to re-learn: something we need to teach ourselves to do. One thing Dr. Rosen suggests is taking “technology breaks,” where you check out all your distractions for a minute or two, then cut yourself off completely for fifteen minutes- gradually increasing the time with every few breaks. Even that, however, might not be enough – the longest most people seem to be able to focus these days is thirty minutes or so.
So…what can we do, then? Perhaps we can make more compelling enterprise applications. Maybe professionals like Rosen can start offering more help to those of us who are unable to focus. But maybe…there’s nothing we can do past a point.Technology has changed- and is still changing – something integral about who we are. About how we think, feel, and function. It could be that the best way to manage this is to simply roll with the punches and adapt.
Of course, it couldn’t hurt to try getting off Facebook for at least a little while. After all, don’t you have some work you should be doing?
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