<$BlogRSDUrl$> Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Marcus P. Zillman, M.S., A.M.H.A. Author/Speaker/Consultant
Internet Happenings, Events and Sources


Saturday, February 26, 2005  

Internet Fosters Pseudo A.D.D.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/10/technology/circuits/10info.html

You know the syndrome -- you sit down to do some work, and before you know it, you're checking e-mail, monitoring the weather report, assembling a new playlist, or filling up a shopping cart with books. A growing number of computer scientists and psychologists are studying the phenomenon of shortened attention span in the age of the Internet. Harvard Medical School professor John Ratey calls it "pseudo" attention deficit disorder or pseudo-A.D.D. Dr. Ben Bederson, head of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, says the key is to design in a minimal amount of user distraction: "We're trying to come up with simple ideas of how computer interfaces get in the way of being able to concentrate." He notes that it all comes down to "flow" -- the state of deep cognitive engagement that people achieve when performing an activity, like writing, that requires a certain amount of concentration. Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a psychology professor at the Claremont Graduate University who's written on "flow," says interruptions do have their place. "I shouldn't knock distraction completely, because it can be useful. It can clear the mind and give you a needed break from a very linear kind of thinking." But "predictive interfaces" that try to identify those moments when a distraction, like e-mail, can safely interrupt the user's momentum are unlikely to be successful, says Bederson. "That's very, very hard for a computer system to guess."

posted by Marcus Zillman | 4:10 AM
archives
subject tracers™