Technology is (Sneakily) Making You Dumber

Buzz! Beep! Vrrrb! It’s hard to go five minutes without getting some type of notification. We’ve learned to react to each one and the constant “noise” is actually keeping you from being your optimal self.

I will never forget something Neil Strauss, author of “The Game,” taught me at SteemFest in 2016: Do creative work in the morning and save reactive work (i.e. emails) for 4 hours later. After the brain has sorted out problems during a good night’s rest, the worst thing you can do is pick up your phone and start scrolling through social media feeds, responding to texts, and reacting to notifications.

Instead, it’s better to exercise the creative muscles when those “reactive” stresses aren’t hindering you. Most people, myself included, let technology hijack their brain power before even getting out of bed. It continues throughout the day until the last thing we see before sleep is the glow of a phone screen. Rinse, repeat.

Study after study shows that when we get interrupted or try to multitask, it costs us 23 minutes per distraction on average. That means any time you check your Facebook notifications or try to catch up on a few Slack messages, it adds 23 minutes to the current task. Ouch.

The Multitasking Myth

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat — there’s no such thing as “multitasking.” Sure, you can work on five things at once, but you’re just dividing 100% of your attention between those tasks. 50% to the TV in the background, 30% to various iPhone and desktop notifications, 20% to writing your report, etc. You aren’t doing anything well; you’re just half-assing a lot of things at once.

What Causes the 23-Minute Drag?

The time cost is known as “context switching.” In addition to wasting time with the actual distraction, it also takes your brain time to assimilate again. That might mean re-reading the last few paragraphs of an article or whatever code you’d worked on for the last two hours, but more realistically, it’s like starting over from scratch. When notifications or other distractions emerge, they snap you out of whatever deep thinking you may have been in.

What Popups, Distractions, and Notifications REALLY Cost

Allowing distractions and notifications to steal your attention is worse than you might think. It’s not just about missing deadlines or tanking your efficiency.

Multitasking Lowers Cognitive Function & Your IQ

Yes, you read that right. Regularly doing multiple things at once is more than a productivity-sabotager. It actually makes you dumber — about as intelligent as an 8-year-old. Oh, but wait! Science goes on to say,

“It was long believed that cognitive impairment from multitasking was temporary, but new research suggests otherwise. Researchers at the University of Sussex in the UK compared the amount of time people spend on multiple devices (such as texting while watching TV) to MRI scans of their brains. They found that high multitaskers had less brain density in the anterior cingulate cortex, a region responsible for empathy as well as cognitive and emotional control.” (Source)

Gloria Mark, Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine also argues that a person can’t accomplish deep thinking when they are constantly bouncing from task to task. It takes her a few laser-focused hours of working before the deep, creative thinking begins. Deep thought would never be possible with perpetual notification sounds, physical disruptions, or stray web usage.

Addictive Behavior

If you find yourself falling into bad multitasking habits, you’re not alone. Feeling the need to check your phone, social media, emails, etc. every few minutes is a widespread addiction. The instant gratification that comes from continually switching to different things gives a false impression of accomplishment. And each little notification — an Instagram like, a retweet, comments on your latest blog post — gives your brain a kick of dopamine, similar to the effects of cocaine. The more you give in, the more you crave it. As Andrew Sullivan shares, tech addiction will completely consume and hijack your mind (and life) if you let it.

Reduced Concentration, Emotional Intelligence, and Attention to Detail

The hyper-connected, multitasking “loop” produces other undesirable long-term consequences, too. Over time, the quality of your work decreases as your ability to concentrate deteriorates. Then, reduced focus brings a steady decline in emotional intelligence skills like social- and self-awareness. Research shows that both of these skills are a strong determinant of how successful you are at your job.

Creating an Interruption-Free Environment

The information up to this point might sound like “doom and gloom,” but there’s plenty of positivity on the horizon. While our tech-saturated society makes it incredibly easy to be a victim of these unfortunate “costs,” it’s easy to change your environment.

Strategically Silencing Notifications

With each new app, more notifications infiltrate your life. For me, telling my phone to “STFU” may have been caused by an article I read, or it could have just been my own built-up frustration. Either way, I decided to silence about 90% of the mobile and desktop notifications last year. I put the “pings” into three buckets:

1. RED: If I miss an alert, it would have a critical impact on my job, health, or family/friends lives. (Example: Google Calendar alerts me about client calls, appointments, etc. Getting notifications is essential to my day-to-day organization and planning.)
2. YELLOW: Missing an alert might be inconvenient for others, but it’s not an urgent matter. (Example: I check messages on Slack at regular intervals throughout the workday while I’m on my laptop. Once I leave work, I can be reached by text/call if there’s something urgent. 99% of the time, messages can wait until the next day.)
3. GREEN: Whether I see/check this notification, it doesn’t have a significant impact on my life or the lives of others. (Example: Instagram really doesn’t need my attention unless I have spare time. Checking it throughout the day is only feeding the multitasking addiction.)

With these in mind, I created a minimalistic notification environment that looks like this:

1. RED: Since these are highly important alerts, they will likely have a notification sound, app icon, home screen pop-up, and appear in the notification center. Depending on the app (desktop/mobile) I might want the notifications on both my laptop and phone.
2. YELLOW: There is more strategy and selectiveness behind when, where, and how applications can notify me. As in my example above, I only get notifications for Slack on my laptop. Even then, all I have is the app icon, not the desktop pop-ups. This limitation ensures I can concentrate all my energy on client work and avoid the unrelated chitchat. On my phone, I find that sometimes an app icon is enough to get my attention when I have spare time, but a sound or pop-up isn’t necessary.
3. GREEN: Anything in this category is “meh.” Whether I check it or not, it won’t make much difference. A few of those include Snapchat, Facebook, Fitbit, Groupon, Waze, and yes, even Gmail. Essentially, I can check them when I want to, but they shouldn’t be intruding on my day and stealing focus away from things I care about. Sometimes you need to “feel out” new apps to see what kind of notification frequency they push out, but a lot of times the “Allow Notifications” button can be toggled to “off.”

Of course, I encourage you to find the “buckets” that work best for you, but this strategy has been highly effective in helping me silence the chatter. Like me, you may also find some useless/dormant apps you can just delete altogether for more phone space.

Find Your Most Productive Setting

Every person has a different high-productivity environment. For me, it’s in my home office in the morning after I’ve had breakfast and a double shot of espresso. To find your own, consider:

• What time of day are you most awake/engaged? (If you aren’t sure, rate your energy and productivity level in the morning, afternoon, evening, and night for a week to find out.)
• What “tools” help you work best? (i.e. a clutter-free desk, etc.)
• What location is best for you?
• What conditions set you up for success? (i.e. eating a nutritious meal, getting eight hours of sleep, etc.)

Whatever your findings, remember the advice from Neil Strauss and resist the urge to check your phone immediately after waking up. Mornings might not be your most creative time, but that doesn’t mean they should be squandered with “reactive” (read: non-productive; trivial) work.

Make Time to Unplug Completely

The never-ending demands technology puts on us can be overwhelming after a while. Many people, myself included, find that daily meditation provides incredible de-stressing and clarifying effects. It does, however, require diligence. You can’t do it once every couple days and expect to notice results. When you make it a daily habit, though, you can expect more mindfulness, concentration, and emotional intelligence in no time. Meditation trains your mind to focus on the task at hand and shut out distractions.

In addition to your daily meditation practice, find time to literally turn your technology OFF. Full disclosure: it’s going to feel scary at first. After relying on your phone or laptop to occupy every spare moment of your life for years, suddenly being alone with your own thoughts can be, well, kind of intimidating. If you push through it, I can promise you the effects will be apparent, positive, and lasting.

Silence (From Distraction) is Golden

Breaking away from the incessant blather of our tech-driven world is — if you haven’t already figured it out — critical to long-term wellness and success. Just remember: YOU control how, when, where, and why your technology disturbs you.

Hopefully, this knowledge and these strategies will help you find your own balance. Perhaps you have other techniques that help you? I’d love to hear them!