You’re busy counting something………. ticks, money, marbles, whatever. And then someone pops by to say “HOWZIT”, creating an interruption.
You’re toast…. you have to start counting from the very beginning. Eish !
This week’s Neurotechnology Tip, encourages you to do everything in your power to AVOID interruptions, even innocent interuptions, like a notification of an SMS coming through. Short interruptions are I-N-T-E-R-U-P-T-I-N-G !
Ping, buzz……. CRASH
Researchers from Michigan State University “tormented” 300 volunteers, to explore just what it takes to interrupt a person’s train of thought. The volunteers were required to perform a sequence-based procedure on the computer……..the researchers then pinged, beeped and buzzed them.
It sounds very dramatic, but the pings, beeps and buzzes were the kinds of things typically encountered in the modern world – your computer pings, every time an e-mail arrives, your phone buzzes when there is activity on your facebook profile. We’re pinged, buzzed and otherwise disrupted continuously.
The research team discovered, anything that lasted for 3 SECONDS constituted a MAJOR brain interruption, which manifested as a thinking CRASH. When the volunteers were interrupted they made lots of mistakes, in fact, the error rate for the task at hand, doubled.
3 seconds can be disastrous
Now having to recount ticks, money or marbles is annoying and wastes time.
But, if the guy who is guiding in the plane at JFK airport responds to an SMS from the dry cleaner……….everyone on the plane could end up needing to be cleaned up from the pavement.
Brain is not so good at multi-tasking
Thinking is hard work and when you’re in the midst of serious thinking, you max out the brain circuits.
An interruption, even a three second one, causes a circuit break, because an additional circuit has been forced to come on line to manage the brief “interruption”. The circuit disturbance, causes a momentary wobble in the thought processes, your brain does recover.
But the re-route takes time….. so errors happen
Cut your brain some slack
So if you’re studying……. make it easier on your brain – do what you can to protect it from those “tiny” interruptions.
Kill the fly, close the door, turn off the phone or leave it in another room – ON SILENT.
Remember short interruptions are still INTERUPTIONS.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. Erik Altmann
To wire up your brain a little each week ………………..
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Further reading
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| Hi, this is your brain talking and I am an addict……… | Work and TV are like oil and water, they don’t mix | Your brain needs periodic surprises to keep focused |
Did you learn something new or do you have a different perspective ? I’d love to hear from you so post me a comment below