Please distraígame: I'm trying to think
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Chetna And Prithvi Mms
The Wall Street Journal .
Digital Network. By Jonah Lehrer live in a world that loves attention
. When we need work, we force ourselves to focus, to stare at the computer before us. We take a lot of coffee, caffeine helps us focus, and when the coffee is not enough, we turned to Red Bull. In fact, the attention span is rated as a skill so essential to life when it is lacking is considered a medical problem. For example, in the United States, almost 10% of children now diagnosed with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADHD 
). In recent years, however, scientists have begun to emphasize the amazing benefits of not paying attention. Sometimes, too much concentration can be counterproductive, all that caffeine may be an obstacle. For example, researchers have discovered a surprising link between daydreaming and creativity, people who daydream is better for generating new ideas. Other studies have found that employees are more productive when allowed to "surf the Internet" and that people who can not concentrate because of severe brain damage, in fact, achieved above average scores in different problem-solving tasks.
A new study led by researchers at the University of Memphis and the University of Michigan extends this theme. The scientists measured the success of 60 students in various fields, from visual arts to science. Students were asked whether they had ever won a prize in an art fair or had received an award at a science fair. In each field, the students who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder got better results: their inability to concentrate proved to be a creative advantage. And this lesson applies not only to people with an attention disorder. A few years ago, scientists the universities of Toronto and Harvard made a brief mental tests to 86 students at Harvard. The test was designed to measure their ability to ignore irrelevant stimuli such as noise from air conditioning or a conversation nearby. This ability is often considered an essential component of productivity, and get people to not be distracted by superfluous information. This is where it get interesting data: students who had more difficulty ignoring distractions, also had seven times more likely to be called "eminent creative" in their previous achievements. (The association was particularly strong among students prone to be distracted than had high IQs).
According to scientists, the inability to concentrate helps to ensure a richer mix of thoughts on knowledge. Because these people had problems to filter the world, ended up leaving all stimuli came into his head. They could not avoid having an open mind. Such lapses of attention is to be a crucial creative. When faced with a difficult problem, the obvious solution-the first idea on which we focus, is probably not correct. In such situations, it often helps to consider unlikely possibilities meet the challenge from an unconventional perspective. And so, the distraction aid: it is more likely that people who can not concentrate consider information that might seem irrelevant at first but then inspire a breakthrough. When we do not know where to look, we find everywhere. This does not mean, of course, that the attention or the ability to concentrate is not an important mental skill or attention disorders are not a serious problem. Clearly, having difficulty in the classroom has no advantage, nor is unable to follow the instructions.
worth noting that all these studies involve college students, which tells us nothing about children with ADHD who fail to graduate from high school. The distraction
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB129867584688990095.html
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