Distractions are bad, especially when you're at work. And as it turns out, a new study found it doesn't matter how many times you're distracted in one period of important work. It just takes one little distraction to derail your productivity.
The study involved 300 middle school, high school, and university students who were told to study for 15 minutes. The researchers then observed how difficult it was for them to maintain focus and a lot of the results were almost similar. Most of their distractions came from technology, in the form of notifications. Social media gets you distracted!
Not surprisingly those who stayed on task longer and had study strategies were better students. The worst students were those who consumed more media each day and had a preference for working on several tasks at the same time and switching back and forth between them. One additional result stunned us: If they checked Facebook just once during the 15-minute study period they were worse students. It didn't matter how many times they looked at Facebook; once was enough.
Browsing the web at work can be good for productivity, but its not going to help you when you have to focus on an important task. So here's a tip. Schedule your media, know when it is time to check your social media networks instead of constantly looking at them instead of doing that important proposal you have to do.
[Psychology Today]
Photo by Bengsoon Chuah.
