Distractions

Welcome, Mr. Ryan, to the 25-page essay I will be writing you. It’s approx. 7:08 PM and I’m starting this essay right now. I have a lot of things to do, but getting signed out by you is a big thing, so I guess I need to do this. This sucks a lot, and I hate doing this but I’m going to do it. Cameron, is a distraction because of a lot of reasons, well first let me tell you the definition of a so-called “distraction”. A Distraction is the divided attention of an individual or group from the chosen object of attention onto the source of distraction. Distraction is caused by: the lack of ability to pay attention; lack of interest in the object of attention; or the great intensity, novelty or attractiveness of something other than the object of attention. Distractions come from both external sources, and internal sources. Other things like Multitasking could also be considered as distraction in situations requiring full attention on a single object (e.g. sports, academic tests, performance). The issue of distraction in the workplace is studied in interruption science. According to Gloria Mark, a leader in interruption science, the average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and, once distracted, a worker takes nearly a half-hour to resume the original task. TECHNOLOGY has given us many gifts, among them dozens of new ways to grab our attention. It’s hard to talk to a friend without your phone buzzing at least once. Odds are high you will check your Twitter feed or Facebook wall while reading this article. Just try to type a memo at work without having an e-mail pop up that ruins your train of thought.
But what constitutes distraction? Does the mere possibility that a phone call or e-mail will soon arrive drain your brain power? And does distraction matter — do interruptions make us dumber? Quite a bit, according to new research by Carnegie Mellon University’sHuman-Computer Interaction Lab.
There’s a lot of debate among brain researchers about the