Modern office distractions cost billions

According to the received wisdom, computers are a godsend for productivity. Word processors relieve us of the burdens of flawless typing; digital files zip onscreen faster than the paper kind can be found and are easily mined for the smallest detail; and the Internet, with its document sharing and virtual conferencing, offers new paths to smooth workplace collaboration.

But the practical experience of working in a modern office can be remarkably frazzled. Instant-communications technology and the natural impatience of co-workers and bosses can create an unholy alliance designed, it seems, to rob the workday of any sustained interval of unbroken attention to a particular task. Social life, allegedly enhanced as networks of acquaintances wire themselves over networks of computer hardware, can be equally jumpy, with constant "friend requests" and "status updates." From email to instant messaging to Twitter - an update service devoted to what-are-you-doing-at-this- moment inanity – the interval between interruptions appears to be approaching zero.

In "Distracted," the free-lance writer Maggie Jackson takes a searching look at this trend, especially the distractions that technology has helped to bring about. The result is a scattershot tour that ranges from anthropology and neuroscience to fast food and the rites of meditating monks. Along the way, Ms. Jackson samples from the thinking of a series of experts – often described as visionaries or mavericks – who study our habits of attentiveness and diversion. The result is more reverie than argument, but "Distracted" does concentrate the mind on a real problem of modern life.

In the workplace, a distracted knowledge worker is a fallow asset. Thus current research into worker habits is especially valuable. In the spirit of Fredrick W. Taylor's scientific management, Ms. Jackson reports, researchers have found that workers "typically change tasks every three minutes" and "take about twenty-five minutes to return to an interrupted task . . . usually plugging into two other work projects in the interim." By one estimate, "interruptions take up to 2.1 hours of an average worker's day and cost the US economy $588 billion a year." Many distractions turn out to be self-initiated: It appears that we just can't wait to read the next email or blog entry or check to see what might be happening in an online discussion.

So what to do? In "Distracted," self-discipline proves the key to the attention puzzle. Martin Seligman and Angela Lee Duckworth, two psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania, recently adapted a famous experiment that tested the willingness of young children to defer gratification: If you put them in a room with some prize – a toy, a marshmallow, an envelope full of money – will they take the prize immediately or hold out for a greater future reward?

In the end, Ms. Jackson makes her way to a Buddhist monastery, where people are learning to practice samatha – that is, to exercise voluntary control over their attention. Mountain retreats may not be for everyone, but the spirit of such an effort makes obvious sense in an era of information glut and tech-driven interruptions. Of course, if samatha – or something like it – turns out to be a good idea, it will be blogged about, praised in group emails, discussed online and debated in instant messages. Work will just have to wait.