In recent years we have noticed a collective lower ability to pay attention.
Our focus, we see, jumps from one task to another, from one app to another. But even when we are not interrupted by emails or Whatsapp notifications, our minds continue to wander between different thoughts.
“The inability of many to concentrate is the most serious and underestimated challenge of business today” writes Maura Thomas, author of numerous books on the subject.
And the data suggests that this concern may be justified.
A study shows that the average time spent working on a task has gone from two and a half minutes in 2004 to a worrying 47 seconds today, before our concentration shifts to something else.
And even more worrying is that, when a subject becomes distracted, it then takes about 25 minutes to return to the original task.
It's easy to blame technology for this reduction in our concentration, but experts tell us it's not that simple. A new branch of research, Neuroergonomics, studies the forces that undermine our cognitive functioning and which range from lack of sleep, to air pollution, up to digital communication.
Experts call it a “concentration crisis”: we have overloaded our minds and in the process they have changed structurally. And, given the difficulty of improving air quality in the short term, it would be desirable to at least take a nap every now and then.