Thoughts on thoughts, part 3

The final thought in this trilogy has to do with an NPR report I heard several months ago, probably in the early morning after one of my pre-dawn jogs with the boys. It made reference to a state called “continuous partial attention’’ – read that, think about it and digest it for a moment. Continuous. Partial. Attention. Essentially, this means that we live in a state of constant distraction!

Again, this is not groundbreaking thought we’re talking about here. However, here’s the kicker. The report about continuous partial attention had to do with doctors working in a children’s hospital. Between their iPhones and their iPads – both of which they were using for work – these doctors have been known to not exactly be 100 percent attentive to their patients. Worse, they have prescribed medicines and/or procedures that might not have been warranted – because of continuous partial attention.

Listen. I’m as guilty as anyone here, and we all are for that matter. I have my cell phone in my pocket, and it is constantly buzzing and ringing. When I meet with recruits, I often excuse myself if the phone rings or buzzes – my rule being, I will only interrupt our meeting if it is a call from my wife or from one of our kids’ schools. But simply in the checking of the phone, there is an interruption. There is continuous partial attention.

I submit to you from the New York Times (surprise, surprise) the following article entitled “The Power of Concentration” that I found interesting and thought provoking. See if you can read it from start to finish without clicking on another link, or checking your phone for texts of Facebook status updates. Go ahead. I dare you.