Attention, attention, may I have your attention?

Attention, attention, may I have your attention?

Apparently the change is upon us and no one knows how far it will reach.

Scientists say juggling e-mail, phone calls and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information. ... These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement — a dopamine squirt — that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.

The article goes on.... at length. If you have the attention span for it.

While many people say multitasking makes them more productive, research shows otherwise. Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.

And scientists are discovering that even after the multitasking ends, fractured thinking and lack of focus persist. In other words, this is also your brain offcomputers.

“The technology is rewiring our brains,” said Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse and one of the world’s leading brain scientists. She and other researchers compare the lure of digital stimulation less to that of drugs and alcohol than to food and sex, which are essential but counter-productive in excess.

The article includes interactive self-tests so you can see where you fall in the paradigm shift. Here's some "professional" running commentary and comments on the article. Oh, and the Times offers a challenge to unplug, get off the grid and write about it for the "paper."