“The Power of Attention”
My first job in relocation, way back in 2005, was also my first “real” office job in a long time. Sitting in that large, open plan Move One work space in Budapest, I would pause from time-to-time to listen to the sounds of the modern office. I should say “sound,” not “sounds” because there above all else, a single sound defined our working environment. It was the sound of fingers striking computer keyboards. Rarely, people spoke. Even more rarely a telephone would ring. Everyone was looking at a screen and moving their fingers.
The conversation about how the advent of computer technology has changed the working world is, perhaps, a bit worn, but there is a new conversation starting that is, arguably, much more relevant; namely, the conversation about what working in a digital world and having a device at hand nearly every waking moment of every day does to us, and more specifically, to the way we think. In an economy where “knowledge work” predominates, it would make sense to pause and consider just how the always-on-at-your-fingertips digital reality impacts our ability to store, recall, and use that same “knowledge.”
The human brain has a gift for making behaviors automatic. Think of a five year old learning to tie her shoes. While at first the task requires her undivided attention, within several weeks her fingers will be tying her shoes on their own while the girl looks up at her father and tells him about the birthday party she attended over the weekend. Shoe tying requires a brief, but fairly intricate, series of fine motor movements. Yet after only weeks of practice, the girl will cross a threshold beyond which she will never need to pay attention to the act of tying her shoes again.
This facility for making routine activities automatic is an evolutionary adaptation that has served us well. Focused thought requires energy in the form of glucose and oxygen. If we had to devote our full cognitive effort to everyday tasks such as tying our shoes, pouring a glass of juice, or sharpening a pencil, we would not have much cognitive reserve left for work. In other words, we would not have the brainpower left to invent shoes in the first place, much less learn to tie them.
Our brains are incredibly adept at automatizing. So much so that we are generally unaware of just how dependent we are on our autopilot. Each day, our unconscious brains orchestrate a vast array of behaviors and decisions, all without calling on our conscious mind for input. A familiar example of operating on automatic is the sensation of arriving at a familiar destination, work, the grocery, the gym, and yet having no immediate, conscious recollection of the trip. How much conscious thought, outside of choosing an outfit, is required to take us from the moment we wake to the moment we sit down at our desk each morning?
Because we activate them so frequently, the neural circuits that we use when tying our shoes or frying an egg, or driving our car, are strengthened, while those circuits that we use fleetingly, say the network we developed to recall our best friend’s phone number or to calculate the circumference of a circle weaken, and in some cases are pruned away.
While there are obvious benefits to be gained from conserving energy by automating the ritual tasks of daily life, this ability does come with a downside. What is a bad habit but an
ingrained, automatic, and mindless tendency to engage in a behavior that is not in line with our goals or desires. I am writing this piece fairly late at night. Starting in college, I relied on food to add a bit of pleasure to the tedium of late night study sessions
For me, late night study-snacking was a behavior that I turned to enough to develop a fairly powerful habit (essentially a well developed neural circuit) that associates late night mental effort with tasty snacks. I am resisting the habit for now (really, I am!) but it is interesting, and a bit irritating, to see just how intact those circuits still are. I laid those tracks well and I have returned to them often enough to keep them alive and kicking.
Establishing a habit of late night snacking or learning to tie ones shoes without paying attention is made possible by one of the human brain’s most fascinating capabilities – its plasticity. Where just a few decades ago pioneering neuroscientists were ridiculed for questioning the “fixed brain” orthodoxy, it is now a well documented fact that our brains change based on how we use them. All learning, from memorizing a multiplication table, to perfecting a difficult passage on the piano, to following a certain daily work routine, involves observable physical change to the brain. While our genetics get us started, as we move through life, our experience plays a critical role in brain development. Another way to think of experience is that which we pay attention to.
Considering the fact that our brains change based on how we use them, it makes sense to pause and consider how the brain of a “knowledge worker” in the digital age might be physically different than that of a clerk in a mid-20th century accounting office. In this era of the ever-present digital device, we can work in the toilet, we can watch a movie while walking down a crowded sidewalk, we can carry on multiple conversations simultaneously via text, chat, and email. We can now fill every spare moment: in line at the bank, waiting at the doctor’s office, stuck in traffic, with some sort of stimulation from the super computer in the palm of our hand. What does the resulting fragmentation of focus and the lack of mental downtime mean for our brains?
How many of us have noticed or attention spans shrinking? Who among us finds it difficult to read more than three pages in a book before becoming distracted and feeling an impulse to glance at the nearest device? If how we spend our attention has the power to change our brain, would it not make sense to be mindful and deliberate about what we pay attention to? When we say we are going to focus on a specific project and then get caught up answering email for an hour, just exactly who, or what, is directing our attention? Are we deciding, or are our devices deciding for us?
In this brave new working world of constant connectivity, don’t we at least owe it to ourselves to pause and consider our relationship with the amazing new technologies that have worked their way into every aspect of our lives?
Do the implications of digital living concern you or does all the chatter about the encroachment of the digital/virtual into our material lives sound like the paranoid musings of a luddite? I am aware that this article has raised more questions than it has answered, but I do hope that you will join me to continue the conversation in Warsaw. EuRA. Please join the session entitled “The Power of Attention.” I am looking forward to an interactive hour spent exploring our experience of digital work and how we might counter any negative impacts that we have experienced. Until then, I encourage you to pay a bit more attention to your experience of working in the digital world and to come prepared to share your observations.