Zen Kitten: Singletasking.
Daniel | April 16, 2008
Something else I’ve noticed about my cats, including the visiting kitten, is they are extraordinarily good at singletasking. Singletasking is a skill that is rapidly disappearing in our culture, replaced by multitasking, ADHD, ADD, and a variety of other acronyms. Before I go any further, please understand that I’m not saying that these things don’t exist - but I am not convinced that they are as prevalent as our society seems to think, and doctors tend to diagnose. How is it that a child diagnosed with ADHD doesn’t seem to have a problem sitting and playing Halo for 8 hours straight, but is medically incapable of paying attention in school for a 45 minute class?
I think there is a strong possibility that if I were growing up now, I’d be classified as one of the ADD or ADHD kids. Just a few years ago, the marketing for some new drug had me seriously wondering if I might have Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. Do I have any of these? No, I don’t. If it’s a book I like, I can read for hours, watch TV, play video games, whatever - concentration isn’t an issue. If it’s something I don’t like doing, I have to use the skills I was taught growing up, focus and concentration. Skills my teachers and parents taught me in the standard ways - if I didn’t concentrate, I got bad grades, which carried with it a bunch of consequences - no TV, no phone, no radio, grounding, etc. If my lack of concentration disrupted other students, there might be detention, in school suspension, or corporal punishment.
At work, when working on a task or project I don’t like doing, I don’t have the same options I do at home. I bring my concentration and focus to the task, but then I have to stop and answer the phone. Or talk to someone at my door. Or check e-mail for an update. These things are part of my job - I’m required to multitask. In our society, we’ve come to expect multitasking. Despite study after study after study that clearly shows us that multitasking undermines productivity, quality and service levels, we still insist on it at work, and in our personal lives.
My cats don’t have this issue. They are what they are, and they do what they do. Whatever it is they are doing, they are focused on it as completely as possible, and they are at their happiest when they can focus on the task at hand completely. If they’re forced to split their attention, they quickly become agitated, and it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge where they decide to go hang out in the other room, or under the bed. I bet you know at least one co-worker like this.
So why do we insist on this destructive behavior? I don’t know. I do know that the more I focus on the one thing I am doing, the happier I am at that moment. Even if it’s doing nothing more than petting a cat.
The basal ganglia portion of the brain becomes very active
Heather | April 16, 2008 | 3:16 pmThe basal ganglia portion of the brain becomes very active when a person plays video games and watches TV. The body releases dopamine which may be why a person with ADD/ADHD is able to focus on TV, computers and video games, but not school work.
I agree that our society has become somewhat ADD and
tru | April 16, 2008 | 3:31 pmI agree that our society has become somewhat ADD and focused on instant gratification, which exacerbates problems of concentration and focus. A lot of this has to be addressed at a personal and cultural level.
For someone with ADD, though, it’s not so simple as “Using the skills you were taught”.
Concentration on things that aren’t engaging is the true bane of an ADD person’s existence, but it isn’t the only symptom.
Trying to concentrate when you have ADD and have a task that is not amenable to that concentration is somewhat like forcing two magnets of the same polarization together. The more you push, the more they slide away from one another.
True, there are things ADD folks can do to lessen that effect, but they are not the things taught in school and punishment is not a particularly effective tool in bringing about concentration. I was diagnosed with ADD when I was 35, and was finally able to start learning some of the tools to help me cope with the challenges I face.
FWIW, ADDers often have to fight to maintain concentration even in a positive atmosphere, when there are multiple distractions. A simple conference call is like a marathon where I have to push myself to re-train my focus on the subject at hand. Unless there’s web presentation, I’ve learned to actually shut off my PC and put my Blackberry out of reach. I use other methods I’ve learned, based on the way I process information, to help maintain concentration - but it’s still an effort.
All that said, I’ve never been freer than when I decided that I don’t do multi-tasking. I simply cannot - the expense of “task switching” is far too taxing - and I think it is even for those who don’t have ADD.
I realize you posted this a while back, but on
emma_g | November 19, 2008 | 5:09 pmI realize you posted this a while back, but on behalf of all the halo playing ADD kids out there, I’d like to add on to the comment above by mentioning that ADD isn’t a lack of attention so much as an inability to direct one’s attention where one wants. That means that most ADD people struggle both with a lack of focus on some things and hyperfocus on others. Hyperfocused times can be very productive or not, but are characterized by intense concentration and a lack of awareness of time passing (like the “flow” state often described by productivity researchers, but without the ability to get it to happen consistently). Non-ADD people have predictable cycles of dopamine throughout the day, so can plan around times they can focus better/worse. ADD people have unpredictable times of focus/distraction.
For people with inattentive forms of ADD, multi-tasking as opposed to task-switching, (i.e. not calling and emailing at the same time, but rather knitting or doodling during a presentation, chewing gum, sipping a drink, listening to music, etc.) can actually improve concentration by providing an outlet for the wandering attention threads while maintaining focus on the main activity…the reverse of what helps many people without ADD, or with other forms of the disorder. It provides an outside trigger that keeps one in the moment (like your cats) instead of wandering around in your head (like tru during a conference call).