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| Replica of Dubai License Plate |
CNN reports "Workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana." Do you obsessively check emails? Text and drive? Consider yourself a multitasking extraordinaire?
Sally Hogshead tells us 100 years ago we had an attention span of twenty minutes. Today it is 9 seconds.
9 seconds.
Thursday evening the Washington, D.C area had a surprise tropical rainstorm. It came down fast and fierce. I had to cancel a professional development dinner engagement because cars were blinking hazzards on nearly every road I traveled. As I enjoyed a burrito for dinner I watched the rain come down. In moments the concave street pooled up to three feet of water and the off street parking area was rising quickly. As I watched and monitored the water level I saw some startling behavior.
Despite the pool of water several people attempted to push through it. Everyone other than the special police vehicle got stuck. The sandy colored water reached up as high as the window of one red mustang. To be honest clocking the driver's decisions to hurdle themselves into the water took less than 9 seconds. And for most it took between 15 and 20 minutes before anyone could push them out. During this time I didn't see anyone checking emails or texts.
More often than not actions speak louder than words. For instance, sure a young Dubai man paid a fortune to be number 1, but the proceeds went to charitable causes. It seems to me people with long attention spans can focus when they need to focus. They are not often bound up in the lure of distraction. It's amazing to me this is not the norm but a highly coveted skill. More and more, evidence is indicating nonstop distractions equals dumber people. What is the value of communication if it makes some of us dumber?
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