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THE NEW YORK TIMES
You There, at the Computer: Pay Attention
By KATIE HAFNER
Published: February 10, 2005
FIRST, a confession. Since starting to write this article two hours
ago, I have left my chair only once. But I have not been entirely
present, either.
Each time I have encountered a thorny sentence construction or a tough
transition, I have heard the siren call of distraction.
Shouldn't I fiddle with my Netflix queue, perhaps, or click on the
weekend weather forecast? And there must be a friend having a birthday
who would love to receive an e-card right now.
I have checked two e-mail accounts at least a dozen times each, and
read eight messages. Only two were relevant to my task, but I responded
right away to all of them. My sole act of self-discipline: both instant
messaging accounts are turned off. For now.
This sorry litany is made only slightly less depressing when I remind
myself that I have plenty of company.
Humans specialize in distraction, especially when the task at hand
requires intellectual heavy lifting. All the usual "Is it lunchtime
yet?" inner voices, and external interruptions like incoming phone
calls, are alive and well.
But in the era of e-mail, instant messaging, Googling, e-commerce and
iTunes, potential distractions while seated at a computer are not only
ever-present but very enticing. Distracting oneself used to consist of
sharpening a half-dozen pencils or lighting a cigarette. Today, there
is a universe of diversions to buy, hear, watch and forward, which
makes focusing on a task all the more challenging.
"It's so hard, because of the incredible possibilities we have that
we've never had before, such as the Internet," said John Ratey, an
associate professor at Harvard Medical School who specializes in
attention problems. Dr. Ratey said that in deference to those who live
with clinically diagnosed attention deficit disorder, he calls this
phenomenon pseudo-A.D.D.
A growing number of computer scientists and psychologists are studying
the problem of diminished attention. And some are beginning to work on
solutions.
Ben Bederson, who builds computer interfaces at the University of
Maryland, said his design goal is to generate a minimum of distraction
for the user. "We're trying to come up with simple ideas of how
computer interfaces get in the way of being able to concentrate," said
Dr. Bederson, director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the
university.
When scrolling up and down a document on a computer screen, for
instance, he said, some software causes the page to jump. It's an
invitation to distraction, in that it requires the eye to reacquaint
itself with the document in order to continue reading. To help people
understand the importance of avoiding these kinds of jumpy
interactions, Dr. Bederson showed that smooth scrolling was not only
easier on the eye, but reduced the number of mistakes people make when,
say, reading a document aloud.
But some distractions don't need much of an invitation. Take e-mail,
for instance.
"It's in human nature to wonder whether you've got new mail," said Alon
Halevy, a professor of computer science at the University of Washington
who specializes in data management systems and artificial intelligence.
"I don't think anything else is as compelling to divert attention."
Dr. Halevy and others talk about making e-mail intelligent so that it
knows when to interrupt the user.
"Suppose you trusted your e-mail system enough that you're alerted to
an e-mail only if it's really pertinent right now," Dr. Halevy said.
"If I knew the right thing was happening with my e-mail, it wouldn't be
such a distraction."
Dr. Halevy said this is a very difficult problem because it requires
sophisticated natural language comprehension on the part of the
software. "Completely solving the natural language problem is still
decades away," he said, but "extracting useful information out of
e-mail is a simpler instance that could make much faster progress."
Dr. Halevy is working on what he calls semantic e-mail, which provides
some structure to the originating e-mail to make it easier for the
software on the recipient's side to understand it and assign a
priority.
Many people, even the experts, have devised their own stopgap solutions
to the attention-span problem.
Dr. Bederson tries to read e-mail for only 15 minutes every hour. Dr.
Halevy sets milestones for himself and breaks down a large task into
small ones. "I say, O.K., I'll finish writing this paragraph, after
which I let myself check e-mail, go browse the Web a little bit or make
a cappuccino," he said. "If I insert enough resting points between the
work, I'm much more motivated to go back to it."
Others might say, however, that Dr. Halevy's self-induced interruptions
remove him from essential cognitive flow.
Dr. Bederson, Dr. Ratey and others often refer to the notion of flow, a
concept coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, (pronounced
CHICK-sent-me-hi-ee), professor of psychology at the Claremont Graduate
University and the author of "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal
Experience" (Perennial, 1991). Flow, in essence, is a state of deep
cognitive engagement people achieve when performing an activity that
demands a certain level of focus, like writing.
Mary Czerwinski, a cognitive psychologist who is a senior researcher at
Microsoft, is studying the effect of interruptions on such deep
cognitive immersion, with Dr. Bederson. "We're thinking that if you're
deeply immersed in a flow state you'll be less amenable to a
distraction from an incoming notification, much less likely to even
know the notification came through," she said.
In related work, other Microsoft researchers are developing software
that can learn to gauge where and how a computer user is directing
attention, part of what they call the Attentional User Interface
project.
One piece of software in development learns to assign a level of
urgency to incoming e-mail messages while shielding people from
messages they can see later - based on an assessment of how busy they
are.
"We can detect when users are available for communication, or when the
user is in a state of flow," said Eric Horvitz, a senior Microsoft
researcher who directs the project.
For Edward Serotta, as for many other people, the problem is reaching
that state of flow to begin with. Mr. Serotta is the director of
Centropa (centropa.org), a group based in Vienna that has created a
searchable online library of Jewish family photos, linked to oral
histories. Part of his job consists of writing lengthy grant proposals,
an unwelcome task at best.
For the past eight years, Mr. Serotta has used a laptop computer. "That
means I can take my ability to dodge serious work everywhere," he said.
"I really depend on small technical distractions to keep me away from
the things I dread doing."
He is currently faced with creating a five-year master plan for his
institute at the request of two potential funding sources. The
continual checking of his e-mail is rivaled by the micromanagement of
his iTunes. "I will certainly do what they ask, but that doesn't
necessarily take precedence over figuring out whether I should list
Stevie Winwood or Steve Winwood in my iTunes library," he said.
Mr. Serotta has four local weather services on his computer's desktop,
all of which he watches like a hawk, even on days when he has no
intention of leaving his office, which is down the hall from his
apartment. "This is vitally important because one of them might be off
by half a degree," he said.
When Mr. Serotta does manage to find himself in the flow of writing,
the stretches of time in which he is focused are what Dr. Czerwinski
calls "key cognitive flow moments." Dr. Czerwinski's research group is
working to identify the signals that such a moment has ended. "It could
be hitting save," she said. "Or it could be the end of a Web search."
And this, Dr. Czerwinski said, would be a good time to allow a
distraction in, like an e-mail notification. "Most software doesn't
take your current cognitive state into account when it lets dialogue
through," Dr. Czerwinski said.
But such predictive interfaces, as they are called, do not necessarily
promise a cure for distraction, even for those more disciplined than
Mr. Serotta, as they can be distractions unto themselves that throw the
user off intellectual course.
"It is the very nature of predictive and adaptive interfaces that the
user has to look at whatever the system is proposing and make a
decision about whether they want to act on it," Dr. Bederson said. As
an example, Dr. Bederson cited word-completion software, like the kind
often found on cellphones. "It's a trade-off because you have to look
at and evaluate each suggestion from the predictive interface," he
said.
Dr. Bederson is also skeptical of a predictive interface's ability to
know when the best time to interrupt might be. "That's very, very hard
for a computer system to guess," he said. Hitting save, for instance,
might be the start of a more reflective moment. "And that's the most
important time to not interrupt," he said.
Dr. Csikszentmihalyi, the flow expert, believes interruptions have
their place. "I shouldn't knock distraction completely, because it can
be useful," he said. "It can clear the mind and give you a needed break
from a very linear kind of thinking."
He continued, "E-mail could be a kind of intermittent relief from
having to think about things that are not really that enjoyable, but
when it becomes a habit so you can't do without it, then it becomes the
tail that wags the dog, and it's a problem."
Peter S. Hecker, a corporate lawyer in San Francisco, said that when he
hears the chiming alert of new e-mail, he forces himself to continue
working for 30 seconds before looking at it. Thirty seconds, mind you,
not 30 minutes.
"Deep thought for a half-hour? Boy, that's hard," Mr. Hecker said.
"Does anyone ever really have deep thoughts for half an
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