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 …

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.

There’s an article in Sunday’s Wisconsin State Journal (June 14th), that talks about various efforts to unplug from our communication technology — at least for a period of time. The traditional April TV Turnoff Week promoted by AdBusters has now morphed into Digital Detox Week.  I’m quoted in the article, citing the toll our constant connections have on our productivity and our emotional health. If you’re incessantly interrupted and you’re usually multitasking, you’re not getting much done and you’re likely to feel burned out and frazzled.  The article notes an upcoming documentary that followed three students at Carleton College in Minnesota who gave up their computers for a month.  According to the author of the article, Katjusa Cisar, although it was difficult at first, the students concluded that they hadn’t missed that much by being disconnected from their email and facebook.

We could all learn a lot by trying digital detox for even a day.

The documentary “Disconnected,” is due to air Saturday, June 20th at 9:30 p.m. on Wisconsin Public Television.

I was recently quoted in an article that appeared in twenty newspapers in Canada, and that talked about how many frightening and sensational news stories there are on television right now. Children are highly vulnerable  to intense fear reactions as they stumble upon story after story of dread diseases (currently swine flu), images of war (from Iraq and Afghanistan), climate disasters, talk of financial collapse, and the like.  I gave my usual advice: that television news is not fit for child consumption, with its emphasis on vivid visual images of misery, hostility, and destruction.  Children need to know something (but not everything) about what’s going on in the world, but they’re much better off getting child-appropriate explanations, which more often will come from parents or other caring adults.

But let’s not forget about the impact of these swirling news stories on our own mental health. Many of the threats described in news broadcasts are so overblown that they subject us to a constant level of unhealthy stress.  We can keep up with current events and preserve our mental health better if we limit our exposure to TV news and acquaint ourselves with what’s going on by reading newspapers and checking on line — but not constantly and repeatedly all day long — at decent intervals, once or twice a day.

If you cut back on your news immersion, you’ll be amazed at how much better you feel.

There’s a great article in the New York Times this morning (Science Times, p. 2) describing what it calls our “age of distraction” — and the fact that we cannot get anything done while our attention is constantly being jerked from place to place by our electronic gadgets and the distractions that surround us everywhere we go.  It reiterates what I’ve been saying in my lectures, that the brain can only focus on one thing at a time, and that multitasking is a myth.  Its advice is similar to what I give to people who find that they’re getting less done the more access they have to infinite amounts of information and connection. “Be the master of your interruptions: check your email less frequently; turn off your cellphone and check messages at reasonable intervals (when you’re taking a break); turn off background TV; find times to ‘just think,’ like when you’re driving in your car without the radio on, or you’re taking a walk without your ipod.” You’ll be surprised at the benefits that just a few simple changes in your habits can have for both your sanity and your productivity.

On April 18th, I made a brief presentation to the Madison Civics Club about the impact of technology on adults, with some tips on reducing stress and enhancing creativity in our media-dominated world.  This was done in conjunction with a presentation by Anastassia Goodstein, expert on the media-saturated lives of tweens and teens.  Many members of the audience agreed with me that this is as important an issue for adults as it is for young people.  Follow this link to  my presentation.

With the political conventions in full bloom, my mind on the media has been especially focused on media coverage of the campaigns. I often talk in my lectures about how watching political coverage makes you feel like you’re living in a dysfunctional family. People are talking AT one another but (often yelling!) but not listening. We rarely hear about the real challenges facing our country, and there’s very little in depth discussion of the differences between what the two candidates would do if they became president. I don’t think it’s necessarily the candidates’ faults. But as some observers have recently noted, television has come to cover the campaigns as if they were sporting events.

Commentators spend so much time with “pre-game” speculation, particularly about what could go wrong. This amounts to nothing but hype. And for anyone who cares about the outcome of the election, it certainly makes viewing more stressful.

I’ve long noted that the vociferous disagreements between pundits for different parties is annoying, emotionally draining, and stressful. But beyond disagreements between politicians, this week we’ve seen visible emotional conflicts among the hosts and reporters employed by the same network. On MSNBC, the arguing and backbiting among pundits like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, Joe Scarborough and David Schuster has been eye-popping. Somebody needs to tell these boys to grow up (or to work through their resentments off camera).

My solution this week has been to depend on C-SPAN. There, you get nothing but the actual convention. You get all the speeches and none of the interspersed commentary. It’s not only more educational, you come away feeling more informed and less agitated!