Tag: distraction
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Digital Distraction is Changing Our Ever-Evolving Minds
Distraction isn’t something new, throughout history humans have always been faced with distraction, but today it seems as though distraction has become a bigger issue. But why is that? A large part of it is due to technology, something that’s supposed to make our lives easier—and often times succeeds—also has the ability to make life…
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Taking Control of Notifications to Take Back Your Attention
Receiving a reminder of an upcoming meeting or task from our smartphones can be a great way to remember to be somewhere to get something done on time. All too often, however, our smartphones beep, flash, and vibrate at us every few minutes to provide us with information we don’t really need. And…
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Making Email Slow Again
When I first began to use email in earnest, while a student at MIT in the early 1990s, writing and reading emails had much the same feeling as writing and reading handwritten letters. By far the easiest way to write an email was to go to one of a small number of computer clusters…
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Take a Break to Stay Focused
The workaholics among us (I can count myself in that group too much of the time) often feel that taking a break is a sign of weakness, or at least will reduce our productivity. In reality, and perhaps counter intuitively, taking breaks can help you to rejuvenate and regain your focus, and thereby increase…
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Protecting Yourself Against Yourself: Blocking Apps for Focus
Although we’d all like to have such a high degree of self-control that we don’t need any external aids to keep ourselves focused and present when using technology, in practice we can all use a little help. There are a variety of apps you can use to resist technological temptation by making it impossible…
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Technological Distractions are a Bug, Not a Feature
I can’t count how many times I have heard the following responses to a complaint about how technology can distract us: “You can’t turn back the clock.” “If you find it distracting, just turn it off.” “It’s the price we pay for the benefits of technology.”
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Stop Multitasking, It’s Wearing You Down!
Are you the type of person that’s constantly doing more than one thing? Do you regularly eat while you’re working? Do you check your emails, social media notifications, and look at news in the morning while you’re getting ready for the day? You’re not alone, most of us multitask, and many of us think we’re…
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Pokemon Go: Does “Augmented Reality” Augment Reality?
The term “augmented reality” refers to technologies — like Pokemon Go — that superimpose characters and other objects on images of the real world. But does “augmented reality” necessarily augment reality? The term “augment” connotes an improvement, not just an addition. Just consider that in the last few weeks Pokemon Go has been…
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Learn to Practice Mindfulness at Work
Do you ever feel aimless and unfocused at work? Do you leave the office at the end of the day feeling like you got nothing accomplished? If so, you are not alone. New research shows that people spend almost 47 percent of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing. In other…
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What’s Worthy of Your Time?
In two of our recent blogs we talked about distraction and the theories behind why we as a society are so distracted—the two oldest theories, and one new theory—but how can we combat distraction?
