Tech and concentration: a fight to the death?
Concentrating properly for a long period (let’s not get carried away – say, 10 minutes) is a real challenge: WhatsApp notifications arrive, you have to check emails all the time just in case, FOMO… It’s hard to get on with real work in these conditions.
Should we block all notifications, double-lock our mobiles and unplug the Wi-Fi in the hope that we can wipe out all sources of distraction? No! Think about it: there are two features you can use to help you stay focused:
- First: you could bunker down in “focus mode” to block all non-urgent notifications: this means no needless interruptions and no fear that you’re missing out on an important message.
- The second idea – which is still not very widespread although it’s already on the Couchsurfing platform – encourages developers to minimize the time you spend on a site so you can spend more time with the person you’re getting in touch with. An app’s value shouldn’t be measured in connection time any more or in the number of messages exchanged, but in the quality of time spent outside the application. This economic model is like the one behind organic meat: you eat less meat, but it’s of superior quality!
This means that tech’s effectiveness isn’t measured in terms of the time spent online, but in terms of the quality of the service or interaction time. Are you ready to change your performance indicators?
To go further
“How better tech could protect us from distraction”
by Tristan Harris, (TEDxBrussels, March 2020.)
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