Johann Hari explains why a single text message costs you 23 minutes of focus. Research from Professor Michael Posner shows that interruptions don't just steal the moment you look at them. The real damage is the time it takes your brain to get back to what you were doing.
About 23 minutes.
Professor Michael Pozner, University of Oregon.
Tell us a little bit more about the distractions around us that we kind of just go. It's a reminder. It's a notification. What's the detail behind that? Why do we have those things? And what does it do to our focus?
Of all the facts I learned for the book, the one that most haunts me is one that was discovered by Professor Michael Pozner at the University of Oregon. And there's lots of haunting facts, but this was the most haunting he discovered. If you're interrupted by something as simple as a text message, it takes you, on average, 23 minutes to get back to the level of focus you had before you were interrupted. So, for example, I'm talking to you now, but behind my laptop is my phone. Right now, when you're asking me a question, I could just glance at my phone for a second if I wanted to, right? There's a little bit of me that would think, just take me three seconds to glance at my phone. It's not much. Three seconds. In fact, I could even text back. It would take me, what, another five seconds? It doesn't take you three seconds. It takes you three seconds, plus the 23 minutes it then takes for you to refocus your phone.
