Ever have one of those days at work in which you know you’ve been busy all day, but you can’t quite point to just what you’ve accomplished? Regulating (not eliminating!) media use may be worth considering.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a heavy user of technology and social media. I’m a big fan of All Things Google, I use an Android-based smartphone for keeping track of both the personal and professional aspects of my life, and I run my course blogs on a WordPress MU installation.
Heck, I even got connected with Team ProfHacker because of my use of social media.
But sometimes, digital media just get in the way. Last weekend, I finally took some time to watch PBS’s recent Frontline feature, Digital Nation. There’s lots to think about there, and the program does a good job of portraying both the benefits and the drawbacks of our near-constant use of technology.
What stood out for me were the downsides (perhaps because the upsides are so obvious to me). In particular, I got to thinking about the points the program made about:
- attention and productivity and
- connecting (or even just the ability to remain quiet and focused)
The second of those is really worth thinking about. I’ve known parents who limit their children’s use of media, not because they think those media are necessarily bad, but because they want to foster their children’s attentiveness to other members of the family. And digital media can certainly be addictive, even for adults. (Case in point: each summer, I usually make an eight-day retreat up in Wisconsin. That should be a time for disconnecting with media and for being quiet and introspective. Could I get through a measly eight days last year without using my phone to check email? Nope. I got twitchy fingers, and just couldn’t resist.)
And it’s not just attentiveness to others and to what’s going on in our own lives that warrants consideration. We also need to be attentive to our work, which brings me back to the first point about productivity. I have indeed had days like the one I’ve described at the top of this post: I’ve been at my computer and busy doing something all day, yet it’s hard to point to any concrete accomplishments at day’s end. When I have a day like that, I can usually point to the culprits: email, Twitter, and the web.
To be fair, it’s sometimes hard to shut out those sorts of distractions. After all, practically speaking, much of my work necessarily involves the use of media. But most of the time, no major disasters are going to happen if I shut down my email or my Twitter feed for a few hours.
Apparently a lot of people get distracted by constant electronic connectivity–especially when trying to write. Meghan Ward offers some suggestions for staying focused and productive (including using MacFreedom or Self Control* to shut down your computer’s networking) at her blog, Writerland, in a post aptly titled “Butt-in-chair stick-to-it-iveness.”
Do you find yourself needing to manage digital distractions in order to remain focused, attentive, and productive? Do you have any strategies to share that you’ve found helpful? Let’s hear about them in the comments.
*Both of these applications are for Mac OSX; suggestions of comparable software for Windows and Linux users would be most welcome.
This post’s CC-licensed image is by Flickr user dougbelshaw.
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8 Responses to Distraction, Productivity, and Being Attentive (aka Regulating Media Use)
Erik - March 12, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Great post. The combination of social networking, etc., and a self-directed activity like writing create the need for some sort of discipline or system to avoid temptation and distraction. Not to toot my horn, but when I wrote about a similar problem in last year (http://www.erikmarshall.net/blog/getting-started/), social networking was the #1 culprit of distraction I listed. I still haven’t found a good solution. Has anyone else?
Erin Templeton - March 12, 2010 at 3:34 pm
I only allow myself to check in on certain media at set times. I can write or grade or read for a period of time, usually an hour, then I give myself a 15 minute break to check email or twitter or whathaveyou. Those sites are my carrots and make it easier to plant myself back in the chair to get back to the task at hand.
When I was writing my diss, I used to purposely go to a library near my campus that had no wi-fi. It had computers that patrons could use for email or the web, but they were public terminals, so you couldn’t sit there for hours and waste time. That helped me a great deal.
Mr. Gunn - March 12, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I’m not convinced it’s a problem for everyone, so I think a better definition of for whom is it a problem and why is needed before looking for a solution.
Kelli Marshall - March 12, 2010 at 2:25 pm
What a worthwhile post! In some ways, I’m glad Twitter, Facebook, and like weren’t around when I was writing my dissertation. =)
Mr. Gunn - March 12, 2010 at 2:42 pm
What frustrates me when people mention the need for quiet time for reflection is that it’s one of those agreeable things that are easy to say, but really quite ill-defined. Who needs quiet time and to accomplish what? Are those goals shared by everyone in the audience, or just a small group? Is it a luxury to have this, kinda like having an office with a closeable door vs. a cubicle?
Amy Cavender - March 12, 2010 at 3:56 pm
I suppose the need is ill-defined because why it’s needed varies a lot from one person to another. In my case, quiet’s necessary for two main reasons, one personal and one more work-related. On the personal level: if I don’t get some time for quiet, I’m apt to lose touch with what’s going on in my own life. As far as work is concerned: it’s really hard for me to get much writing done when I’m constantly connected. At some point I need to just sit myself down and write.
Is quiet time a luxury? Probably–at least, I can imagine some situations in which carving it out would be mostly a matter of self-discipline, and others in which it could really be very difficult.
Jason B. Jones - March 12, 2010 at 4:05 pm
I think that the people who have identified it as a problem are clear about this: It is a problem for them. That’s pretty much the way this site works!
It doesn’t look to me like Amy or anyone in the comment stream is trying to assert that everyone has this concern.
Erik - March 12, 2010 at 7:04 pm
I like Erin’s approach. I heard Paul Auster say once on NPR that he has an apartment in NY that he goes to every day from 9-5. The apartment has a typewriter and a phone to which only his wife and his agent know the number. That may be a bit extreme for most of us, but some version of that may be helpful. Maybe scheduling time for social media stuff and not deviating from that might help. Using it as a carrot is a great idea. Turning off notifications and closing browser windows is also key, but I don’t always do that.