I was planning to use this for science Friday before I found out about the Sleepscience blog.
So here it is, the science of distractions, from "Considerate Computing" by W. Wayt Gibbs Scientific American Jan 2005.
To be sure, distractions and multitasking are hardly new to the human condition. "A complicated life, continually interrupted by competing requests for attention, is as old as procreation," laughs Ted Selker of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. But increasingly, it is not just our kids pulling us three ways at once; it is also a relentless barrage of e-mail, alerts, alarms, calls, instant messages and automated notifications, none of them coordinated and all of them oblivious to whether we are busy—or even present. "It's ridiculous that my own computer can't figure out whether I'm in front of it, but a public toilet can," exclaims Roel Vertegaal of Queen's University in Ontario.
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