Are you an Info-maniac?

Photo: WPC 2006 — Must email... Must email... by Carsten Knoch

Too much email, too many social nets beckoning us to join, constant IM pings. Digital distractions have become impossible to ignore.

They are taking a toll, personally and professionally. ZDNet points us to Infomania: Why we can't afford to ignore it any longer by Nathan Zeldes, David Sward, and Dr. Sigal Louchheim:

The result is that people average 11 minutes on any one “working sphere” (project) before switching to another project altogether. This extreme fragmentation of work results in a severe cumulative time loss, with some estimates as high as 25 percent of the work day. In addition, the inability to concentrate on an intellectual activity requiring more than a few minutes has a debilitating effect on employees’ ability to achieve optimal results.

This passage caught my eye, and not just because they quote "Winnie the Pooh". It supports a hunch that I've had that people stay so connected because they feel they're going to miss something if they don't:

People afflicted by Infomania are well aware they are in trouble, yet they nurture a feeling that they should stay the course and not fight back [2]. They rationalize that the modern world revolves around communication, so they must always be connected or lose vital information. Many believe that there is no better way. This can’t help but remind us of A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh":

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.

If you are a knowledge worker and/or spend a lot of time online (even for personal reasons), you might benefit from reading this short white paper. It makes me glad I don't have a BlackBerry (yet).

The authors do not go into solutions, but they do make a call to action for companies to start finding them for their employees. This will not only increase productivity, it will also improve employees' overall quality of life.

We do need uninterrupted thinking time. We need dreaming time. We, especially those so technologically connected, need to unplug occasionally. We need a carved-out space each day where our imaginations can play, stretch, problem solve. It's no mystery why so many people found this past March's Shut Down Day to be rejuvenating.

I've thought of one solution for myself. Put aside 30 minutes each day, using a timer. Turn off the computer or just be away from it. Sit with a blank sketch pad and pen/pencil. Let myself draw, doodle, write. Enjoy the quiet. I'm sure I'll feel more focussed, balanced afterwards.

As I think of other solutions, I'll post them.

UPDATE: Nathan Zeldes, a co-author of this paper, left a comment explaining that his team has a host of solutions to Infomania specifically for Intel. (Their paper from which I quoted was written solely to explain the problem and prompt action about it.) To read his full comment and to click on the link to see how Intel is approaching this issue, click here.

Comments

[Nathan Zeldes]

"The authors do not go into solutions, but they do make a call to action for companies to start finding them for their employees." -- Actually (of course) we do go into solutions here at Intel; but we kept them out of this article because its original purpose (when we wrote it for internal use) was to convince management, with data, that action should be approved. We wanted to share it in just that form, because it worked so well.

For some of our plans and progress on solutions, see our posts at http://blogs.intel.com/it/tags/infomania

[Kristin Gorski (KG)]

Nathan — Thanks so much for this additional information. I will definitely check out your posts on the matter, and I'll add an update to my post about it.

I look forward to reading them.