Concentration II

The more we Tweet and bring televisions in our cars, the more the issue of focus and concentration pops into the news. I found this article in the New York Times called Ear Plugs to Lasers: The Science of Concentration to be particularly compelling because it gives specific insight into our attention spans, how we focus (it turns out we never multitask because we can’t), and how to organize our workload because of it.

Some of the ideas mentioned in the article might sound ridiculous, especially if you’re a teenager. Earplugs in the subway probably strike you as over-the-top; the motivation behind them should make you think twice. If you really need to focus, you need to let your brain process only the task at hand and that means pointedly eliminating distractions. 

By the same token, the idea in the article that something distracting becomes a legitimate obsession is alarming: what does this mean for you in a test situation when the kid next to you has the sniffles or keeps tapping his pencil? All the more reason to learn to focus and train yourself to concentrate. 

Most importantly, the article’s final idea that “attention is a finite resource” should make you think twice about how you spend your time…and your brain.