Is it just me? Or is anyone else disturbed about the practice of cable news shows featuring video loops of violent and disturbing footage as they describe related news reports? Yesterday CNBC was on (my husband watches the financial market openings in the morning), and they were reporting on the riots in Greece. There was a small amount of footage of rioters throwing rocks and smashing windows, and police in riot gear responding. Although there were only a few seconds of images, the disturbing footage was looped repetitively at the center of the screen, between the charts, the crawls of stock prices, and the talking heads, who were droning on about the expected impact of the Greek crisis on world markets.

I agree that the footage of rioters has news value.  Wouldn’t dream of arguing that it be kept off TV. But looping it is an “aesthetic” decision.  It’s been decided that talking heads and charts aren’t enough to maintain the coveted viewer’s attention.

Maybe they don’t care, but they should know that these disturbing visual images make it harder to focus on and absorb their verbal content.  But beyond that, viewers should know that repetitive exposure to visual images of violence and hostility causes stress.  Not only does it raise your blood pressure while watching, the effects often carry over beyond viewing, leaving you feeling unnecessarily anxious and uptight.

What can you do?

• Consider avoiding programs that replay disturbing images gratuitously (beyond their news value)
• Write, email, or tweet programs and let them know you don’t appreciate their practices

They’re your eyeballs … and it’s your mind, after all …

A new study from the school of Journalism at the University of Maryland shows how tightly tied students are to their digital devices.  200 students were asked to go without all media for 24 hours and then to blog about their experiences.  The results?

• Students often referred to themselves as addicted, or described themselves as experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms.
• Their main use of media is to connect with friends and family, and one of their biggest complaints involved feelings of social isolation.
• Students seemed to miss their ipods the most, relying on music to set their mood or to help them overcome bad feelings.

What do you think?  Are we all somewhat addicted to our digital devices?  Would you feel symptoms of withdrawal if you had to go without your gadgets for a day and interact only with the people around you? Would you feel uncomfortable without some sort of music or stimulation in the background?

If you’re constantly connected digitally, try going without for just an hour or two, and see how it makes you feel.  Try driving in your car with the radio off.  Spend a quiet evening with yourself and maybe a book.  Would that be a relaxing relief or torture?

If it’s difficult, try it for a shorter period of time next time.  Serenity takes some getting used to.  With constant stimulation we’re apt to lose the ability to concentrate, to integrate the things we know, or to gain perspective over our lives.  I’m talking about being “in the moment” without necessarily meditating. A little quiet time each day can produce both cognitive and emotional benefits.  There’s no risk either.  You can always turn the your devices back on!

A report released earlier this year from the Global Information Industry Center at the University of California, San Diego confirms that we are swimming, perhaps even drowning in information.  It gives estimates of what we receive from a variety of sources, ranging from newspapers and books to television, phones, radio, computer games, and the Internet.

The Findings?  The average American in 2008 consumed information  almost 12 hours per day, up from 7.4 hours per day in 1980.  According to the researchers,  current consumption corresponds to more than 100,000 words a day in addition to images and music.  Traditional media, like TV and radio account for 60 percent of our hours of consumption, but computer use constitutes a sizeable portion of our time.  Interestingly, reading, which had declined with the adoption of television, has tripled between 1980 and 2008, largely because that’s the main way people receive information on the Internet.

All this information helps us solve many problems, but it also presents problems, too.  Information overload can interfere with productivity and creativity.  Learning how to benefit from all this information without being overwhelmed by it can be a challenge.

When working on a project and especially when trying to be creative, it’s important to know when your brain has reached the saturation point of information and when it’s time to take a break to a low-information environment and find connections within the information you already have.

Some tips for preserving productivity under information overload:

1) When you’re overwhelmed with information for a project you’re working on, break away and do something else.

2) Choose a break of the low-information variety: Get some exercise or commune with nature instead of surfing the web or catching up on email.

3) When you return to your project refreshed, you’ll be surprised at how much clearer the picture becomes.

4) Be prepared to come up with that brilliant idea when you least expect it — your mind at ease continues to seek new insights in what you’ve recently been working on.  Always have pad and paper or digital recorder at the ready.

Less can indeed be more.

What do you think?

An article in today’s New York Times (4.17.2010) gives further support for the conclusion that we can’t multitask.  In an article titled “As Cell Service Expands in Subways, Thefts Rise.” It says:

“…most thefts occur when passengers are sitting or standing in the subway near the door and paying more attention to their phones than to their surroundings.  The thief snatches the phone and darts out of the train just as the doors shut.”

Imagine: Concentrating so much on your conversation or texting that you don’t notice the potential robber, and your reflexes are so slow you can’t hold on to the very gadget you’re using! Simply put, your brain cannot focus attention on more than one thing at a time.

This is what I explain in Conquer CyberOverload: Get More Done, Boost Your Creativity, and Reduce Stress.  Understanding how your brain works can help you get the most out of technology without being overwhelmed by it.

There are strong opinions about multitasking. I appeared in a report on WISN-TV (Milwaukee) this week (3/1/10), talking about my book Conquer CyberOverload and arguing that multitasking is counterproductive.  The  report contains many great images of people multitasking, and interviews with some multitaskers who swear by it.  One says he’s 1000 times more productive because he multitasks.  But research shows you lose time, quality, and creativity when you multitask. Of course, air-traffic controllers must multitask, and there are times we need to be available for a critical or urgent message that may come in.  But if you can limit your multitasking when you’re trying to get things done and schedule your interruptions rather than being “on call” 24/7, you’ll get more done, boost your creativity and reduce the stress that constant connectedness often causes.  See the video of the WISN interview here.  More information on Conquer CyberOverload.

There’s a great new article out in the Capital Times (Madison) on my new book, Conquer CyberOverload: Get More Done, Boost Your Creativity, and Reduce Stress. It’s apparently gotten quite a bit of attention among the twitterati and the book has sold out on Amazon (more copies on the way).  [The book IS available right now on the web at cyberoutlookpress.com, on Amazon Marketplace, and at the University Bookstore.]  I also did a short interview on WORT (radio FM 89.9) yesterday for their “In Our Backyard” news program.  I’ll make a link to their archive when it’s posted.

An interesting article in today’s (12/21/09) New York Times talks about teens who are disengaging from their Facebook accounts because their obsession with being online is interfering with their school work or other aspects of their lives.  The article also says that as of October, Facebook was being used by 55 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds in the US, up from 28 percent only a year ago.  The article talks about the overuse of social networking sites as an addiction, and mentions a variety of ways that people are helping themselves overcome the temptation. Cancelling their accounts or asking a friend to change their password  are two of the approaches mentioned.

For many adults as well, time on the Internet expands and expands, preventing them from getting things done at work and home, and  interfering with family relationships and increasing stress.  This is one reason I wrote Conquer CyberOverload: Get More Done, Boost Your Creativity, and Reduce Stress, which not only explains why the problem is hard to combat, but also give  strategies for overcoming the temptation of always being connected to one gadget or another.

The book just came out last week.  It’s available on my web site and on Amazon.com, and will soon be in bookstores.

There’s an article in Sunday’s New York Times (11/22/09) that illustrates just how far our dependence on gadgets has gone. Many people who have correctly concluded that driving while using their cellphone is dangerous, are buying devices that disable their cellphones while they’re driving. Understanding their “addiction” to cellphone use, they don’t trust themselves to rely on the off-button.

Companies that employ drivers are interested in these devices, too.  As one executive of a company that has adopted a call-blocking system put it, “We realized we had to go beyond education and policy. You’re going against human nature here, so you need something that works independently of that.”

An partner in a company that makes  cellphone blocking devices is quoted as saying, “If we could control ourselves, we wouldn’t need any of this technology . . . We know it’s such a bad habit, but we crave being connected.”

Some people think that using hands-free technologies is the answer. However, research shows that talking on the phone while driving makes you four times as likely to have an accident. It’s not the hands that are the problem, it’s the fact that people become so engrossed in their conversations that they can’t pay sufficient attention to their driving.

So here we have another confirmation of the fact that our brains cannot multitask when it comes to paying attention. We can only switch back and forth between two tasks. This is one of the main themes of my new book Conquer CyberOverload: Get More Done, Boost Your Creativity, and Reduce Stress. It’s due out on December 15th.  For more information or to pre-order, visit the web site.

There was an article in the Science section of the New York Times (October 13, 2009), by Perri Klass M. D., titled, “Texting, Surfing, Studying.” – A major point of the article was that the experts “are pretty unanimous that we don’t know much” about the impact of multitasking on the attentional skills of young people. However, there’s important recent research on this issue:

1) In a 2008 study by Fried, published in Computers in Education, students who used their laptops in class for multitasking had poorer overall class performance than those who did not.

2) A 2009 study by Ophir and associates, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reports that people who multitask a lot are not good at it: Frequent multitaskers scored lower than infrequent multitaskers on all three tests that involved multitasking.

3) A 2006 study by Foerde and associates, also in PNAS, reported that knowledge acquired while multitasking was less flexible and less generalizable than knowledge gained while single-tasking.

The first two studies were conducted with college students as participants; the third had participants whose mean age was 26.

Therefore, even though research in this area is in its infancy, we do know enough to recommend that multitasking should not be a preferred learning mode at any age.

If young people insist on multitasking because they’re too bored to do one thing at a time, maybe we should direct them to secondary tasks that are less distracting. Neurophysiologist John Medina in his book Brain Rules, suggests putting treadmills in classrooms to increase oxygen in the brain while studying.

In my book Conquer CyberOverload: Get More Done, Boost Your Creativity, and Reduce Stress, which is due out in December, I discuss the issues involved in our constant connection to digital media (especially in adults) and explain why our brains are not well-suited for our tech habits.  I also give tips for overcoming the stress and distractions that CyberOverload creates.