Pay Attention

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > You There, at the Computer: Pay Attention: "A confession. Since starting to write this article two hours ago, I have left my chair only once. But I have not been entirely present, either. Each time I have encountered a thorny sentence construction or a tough transition, I have heard the siren call of distraction.

Shouldn't I fiddle with my Netflix queue, perhaps, or click on the weekend weather forecast? And there must be a friend having a birthday who would love to receive an e-card right now. I have checked two e-mail accounts at least a dozen times each, and read eight messages. Only two were relevant to my task, but I responded right away to all of them. My sole act of self-discipline: both instant messaging accounts are turned off. For now.

In the era of e-mail, instant messaging, Googling, e-commerce and iTunes, potential distractions while seated at a computer are not only ever-present but very enticing. Distracting oneself used to consist of sharpening a half-dozen pencils or lighting a cigarette. Today, there is a universe of diversions to buy, hear, watch and forward, which makes focusing on a task all the more challenging.

Dr. John Ratey, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School said that in deference to those who live with clinically diagnosed attention deficit disorder, he calls this phenomenon pseudo-A.D.D. Dr. Bederson tries to read e-mail for only 15 minutes every hour. Dr. Halevy sets milestones for himself and breaks down a large task into small ones.

Ben Bederson, who builds computer interfaces at the University of Maryland, said his design goal is to generate a minimum of distraction for the user. "We're trying to come up with simple ideas of how computer interfaces get in the way of being able to concentrate," said Dr. Bederson, director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at the university. Dr. Halevy and others talk about making e-mail intelligent so that it knows when to interrupt the user.

When scrolling up and down a document on a computer screen, for instance, he said, some software causes the page to jump. It's an invitation to distraction, in that it requires the eye to reacquaint itself with the document in order to continue reading. To help people understand the importance of avoiding these kinds of jumpy interactions, Dr. Bederson showed that smooth scrolling was not only easier on the eye, but reduced the number of mistakes people make when, say, reading a document aloud.

Dr. Bederson, Dr. Ratey and others often refer to the notion of flow, a concept coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, (pronounced CHICK-sent-me-hi-ee), professor of psychology at the Claremont Graduate University and the author of "Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" (Perennial, 1991). Flow, in essence, is a state of deep cognitive engagement people achieve when performing an activity that demands a certain level of focus, like writing.

Mary Czerwinski, a cognitive psychologist who is a senior researcher at Microsoft, is studying the effect of interruptions on such deep cognitive immersion, with Dr. Bederson. "We're thinking that if you're deeply immersed in a flow state you'll be less amenable to a distraction from an incoming notification, much less likely to even know the notification came through," she said. In related work, other Microsoft researchers are developing software that can learn to gauge where and how a computer user is directing attention, part of what they call the Attentional User Interface project.

For Edward Serotta, as for many other people, the problem is reaching that state of flow to begin with. Mr. Serotta is the director of Centropa (centropa.org), a group based in Vienna that has created a searchable online library of Jewish family photos, linked to oral histories. Part of his job consists of writing lengthy grant proposals, an unwelcome task at best.

Peter S. Hecker, a corporate lawyer in San Francisco, said that when he hears the chiming alert of new e-mail, he forces himself to continue working for 30 seconds before looking at it. Thirty seconds, mind you, not 30 minutes. "Deep thought for a half-hour? Boy, that's hard," Mr. Hecker said. "Does anyone ever really have deep thoughts for half an hour anymore?""