Pardon the Constant Interruption

Abstract

Prior to the introduction of the telegraph system, information moved from one place to another at the speed of a steam locomotive, a dashing pony express, or a lumbering ocean liner. Letters, newspapers, books, and scientific papers required months to create and distribute. With this paucity of new information, the advantage went to those who had the mental ability to use information in interesting and unique ways. In a world in which information moved slowly, the competition was not the person who had more information--everyone had more or less the same information--but the person who could do more with the information he or she held. The telegraph opened the door for rapid delivery of textual information. The fastest Pony Express took days to carry a message across the country; a telegraph operator could send the same message in minutes. The telegraph gave birth to the Information Revolution, but it is now the pony express of modern communication. The speed record for sending Morse Code was set in 1942 by Harry Turner, who succeeded in sending a message at an average rate of 40 words per minute. Even assuming that it was possible to maintain this speed for a 24-hour period, this would amount to only 57,600 words in a day, about 140 printed pages. How many thousands of pages of information does the Internet publish in any given day? How much information can you access in just a few seconds from your smartphone? The frantic pace of information dissemination has real advantages. The person who knows what to do with information has easier access to a wider field of knowledge than ever before. We have tools and sources that provide information both passively, waiting for a user to go and find it, and actively, pushing it into users' hands with an announcement of its arrival. We can cast a wide network in search of new information, bringing more information and a more diverse set of opinions to every question. But there are very real disadvantages, as well. Most of us were programmed to assume that a ringing telephone signifies something important, requiring a response; too often, we apply that same mental model to the constant flood of e-mails, text messages, tweets, social network updates, and RSS feeds. Our lives too easily become a constant round of frantic activity whose only aim is to keep abreast of an unending stream of important interruptions. Attending to these interruptions becomes a full-time job, the sole object of our attention, with the (apparently unreachable) goal of the empty inbox--or multiple inboxes on different information services. This frantic routine leaves no time for inner reflection or the long, slow consideration of difficult problems. And with so little time to consume the flow, we are able to respond to it with only brief and quickly composed answers. We no longer create long treatises on a single topic, but publish dozens or hundreds of short, shallow answers daily on a wide variety of topics. With this condensation we all begin to think like consumers of information, rather than as its creators. We strive to create only the information that an audience will remember later; the sound-bite--or, perhaps, memory-bite becomes the medium of choice. The summary or the witty rejoinder becomes the work itself. This is hardly an environment that encourages the sort of deep thinking that produces great works of art, insightful solutions to complex problems, or breakthrough new technologies. Nobel-quality problems cannot be solved in 15-minute chunks wedged between electronic interruptions. The Great Escape What we all need--especially research scientists and those grappling with large, complex problems--is an uninterrupted space of time, thought, and energy in which to reflect and to take action on the new information flooding in. It is not the digital connection, interruption, or contribution that creates a better product, but the reflection and deep thinking that follow it (Powers 2010). …