Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
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Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#2Yet no mention of car center console UI.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#3I used to have an Apple Watch with LTE so I could go without my phone even when I left the house. Then I sold it because I started needing it much more for work. Now I'm considering getting it again just to be able to keep away from my phone at home.
How low I've fallen.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#4may
These articles really should qualify their claims more, especially in the headlines. Otherwise countless people absorb things semi-consciously as facts, rather than hypotheses that may have some data to support them.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#5They tested the “brain drain” hypothesis that claims the brain has a limited capacity of cognitive resources, and the mere presence of a potential distractor can occupy some of those resources which undercut cognitive performance.
Sounds like something straight out of Conan Doyle
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/lessons-from...
"You see," he explained, "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." "But the Solar System!" [Dr. Watson] protested. "What of the deuce is it to me?" he interrupted impatiently: "you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work."
I believe that this, rather than neuroplasticity, is the main explanation for why children and teens are able to acquire language far easier than adults. The latter have far more to worry about and no one spoon feeds them words all the time.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#6I used to have an Apple Watch with LTE so I could go without my phone even when I left the house. Then I sold it because I started needing it much more for work. Now I'm considering getting it again just to be able to keep away from my phone at home. How low I've fallen.
I never had an apple watch but precisely this is the reason I want one. Leave that stupid phone somewhere but still be reachable by my family.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#7Yet no mention of car center console UI.
I'd imagine those are designed with keeping your focus on the road in mind, by doing things like limiting notifications to only incoming phone calls while you're driving
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#8> Cal Newport said it best in his book Deep Work: the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive.
The people who cultivate that skill, stay up late at night while everyone is asleep so they don’t get distracted. Then they come in late because they need sleep like every one else. As a consequence, deep thought workers are seen by their immediate and responsive counterparts as obtuse, eccentric, or worse: lazy and unable to manage their time.
This really comes down to the workers dilemma. Do you spend your time marketing your self to others and letting people know your accomplishments, or do you spend the time doing work that will benefit others? Deep thought workers will bias heavily towards work that will benefit others. This benefit is often non-obvious deep thought workers will run the risk that their peers, that are more connected and more reachable, will take the credit for the results.
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#9> Cal Newport said it best in his book Deep Work: the ability to perform deep work is becoming increasingly rare at exactly the same time it is becoming increasingly valuable in our economy. As a consequence, the few who cultivate this skill, and then make it the core of their working life, will thrive. The people who cultivate that skill, stay up late at night while everyone is asleep so they don’t get distracted. T…
Why is getting up early not considered?
Re: Phones and apps reduce your ability to focus even when they don’t distract you
#10I used to have an Apple Watch with LTE so I could go without my phone even when I left the house. Then I sold it because I started needing it much more for work. Now I'm considering getting it again just to be able to keep away from my phone at home. How low I've fallen.
I like my Apple Watch, but I use it almost exclusively for fitness (workouts, trail running, etc).
I decided early on to remove all the other things -- apps, notifications, etc. I get Messages, but that's about it. I like the balance, and it allows me to keep my phone farther away in a bag than before.
Plus with the WorkOutDoors app, I can go on runs, with maps, without my iPhone. Love that.