Attentional Blindness

            Many of us multi-task.  If the digital age facilitated any particular habit, I would say this is doing several things at the same time.  So, who among us don’t listen to music while updating our status on some social networking site and answering a text message on our cell phone simultaneously?  When I ask my students how they work on their computers, I often get a unanimous admission that they always have several windows open at the same time, and they typically switch from one window to another. 

            One potentially dangerous habit that many of us have generalized with this multi-tasking habit is doing a few things while driving or crossing the street.  Many accidents actually happen due to such multi-tasking. 

            The fact is that our attentional resources are very limited.  We are only able to pay attention on one thing at any given moment.  When we multi-task, what we are actually doing is shifting our attention to various things very quickly.  In the moment that we are paying attention to something, we cannot pay attention on any other thing.  This is a fact about our attention span. 

            I have attached a video below featuring a TED talk of a cognitive psychologist named Levin Simon, who has been studying the phenomenon of attention.  You may have seen similar videos from other websites, but I find his 20 minute talk rather enlightening on the idea of change blindness and attentional blindness.  Essentially, what he is saying is that a majority of people tend to overlook and neglect objects and details that we do not expect to see to be in that particular context.  It is an interesting video that I hope you can spend some time viewing. 

            Many of us believe that knowledge is power.  Roughly, this might mean that when we know something, it can shape the way we behave and deal with our environments.  In this instance, some of us might be misled into thinking that knowing about attentional and change blindness can bring about an awareness that will help us avoid such phenomena from happening.  Unfortunately, the fact remains that knowing about these phenomena will not make them go away.  They are simply realities of our limited nature that we need to accept and manage. 

            And so, when there is a possibility that you might lose your life or limb on multi-tasking, remember that our attentional resources are very limited.  We need to focus only on one thing and one thing only.  If we are driving, let’s focus on driving.  We can wait to switch channels on our radios or answer the text message on our cell phone when we are stalled in traffic or when we have already reached our destination.  If we do any of these while driving, we increase the probabilities of an accident happening.  Similarly, when we find ourselves talking with someone on the cell phone or answering text messages while walking on the street, we also put ourselves at risk for a pedestrian accident. 

            There are certainly benefits in multi-tasking, and I am guilty of this habit as well.  However, let’s put a limit when we are doing something that might be potentially dangerous to us and those around us.