Archive for the ‘Audio Interviews’ Category
Researcher Interview #1, Part 1
For an introduction to this series, click here.
Click to Listen (3 minutes)
(Interview conducted by Maura Thomas, Chief Trainer at RegainYourTime.com)
MT: I’m speaking with Dr. John Dovidio from Yale University and he has been kind enough to allow me to interview him about attention and multitasking and the somewhat conflicting studies that are coming out lately around both of these. Dr. Dovidio teaches psychology at Yale. Thanks for taking the time.
JD: Thank you.
MT: So I sent you a passage from an article by Matt Richtel from the New York Times…Matt Richtel is doing a series called “Your Brain on Computers” and this particular quote from his article says,
“Scientists say juggling email, phone calls, and other incoming information can change how people think and behave. They say our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information. These play to a primitive impulse to respond to immediate opportunities and threats. The stimulation provokes excitement, a dopamine squirt, that researchers say can be addictive. In its absence, people feel bored.”
Matt Richtel: “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price,” the New York Times
So I’ll first ask you, do you agree with his conclusions and do you have any thoughts?
JD: I think his conclusions…his argument is a good one, in that from an evolutionary perspective, we’re built to be attentive to things that tend to grab our attention, that we tend to lose focus. And we’ll keep…we’re very much attuned to things like motion, activity, color, flashes, because those all had evolutionary importance to us. So it’s easy to become captivated by all the different things that you see on computers, on the web, and all the other devices that we have around us. But it doesn’t mean that that is our destiny. I think he oversimplifies it a little bit, by saying, just because we have an evolutionary tendency to do something, doesn’t mean we can’t make adjustments, contemporary adjustments, to have that simulation work for us.
MT: This is Maura Thomas from RegainYourTime.com. Thanks for listening to part one of my interview with Dr. John Dovidio, psychology professor at Yale University. I hope you’ll come back tomorrow to hear or read our discussion of the differences in the effects of media-multitasking in children’s brains vs. adult brains. Also, if you’re interested in reading up on the current research, please visit the “Research and Resources” page of this website. Thanks for visiting!
(Click here for Part 2 of the interview.)
Some Thoughts on “Balance”
A couple of years ago, I had the distinct pleasure of being interviewed by radio host Lolis Garcia Baab, for her show, The Ladies Room with Lolis. Following is a segment where we discussed the subject of “balance,” and how it seems to be a very popular concept. Click below to hear my thoughts on balance in the two-minute clip. The transcript also appears below. Check back for more of the conversation, and if you have thoughts you’d like to share, please do so in the comments. I’d love to read them. Thanks for visiting!
Thoughts on Balance (2 mins.)
Lolis: It’s interesting…before we went on the air I told you last week I had a guest on that was talking about “balance,” and how women are…and men…but women, are obsessed with the whole idea of balance, and she actually talked about how we should stop talking about balance and start talking about strategies, and you’re all about strategies. You’re all about that, so what do you think are some of the most important or glaring things that jump out at you from your clients and their needs?
Maura: When people talk about balance, often times what they’re talking about is really being “present” in your personal life when you are at home or trying to enjoy some recreational activity, and then being present in your professional life when you are trying to work and focus on your professional life. And it’s really hard for a lot of people to do that, especially women, because we never stop worrying about our families, and our house and our kids, so when we’re at work, and the phone rings, and it’s home, people freak out because “oh no, what’s happening at home,” and so it’s hard to focus, it’s hard to be present in work, and hard to be present at home, because when you’re home…you know, you try to leave at 5 or 6 o’clock, get home at a decent hour, and then the phone rings, and you’re afraid that something’s exploding at work, and so, really to me, you achieve balance when you are able to have that separation and you can focus on your personal life when you’re trying to relax, and enjoy some recreational time, and when you can focus exclusively on your professional life when you’re trying to be productive and trying to get things done.
Lolis: And actually, that is the best definition of balance I have ever heard.
Maura: Well thanks!
Lolis: Honestly, honestly. I am telling the truth, I have never…it IS, that’s exactly what it is, it’s being present, in whatever it is that you’re doing, because I experienced that. When I had my children and I was at work, I was always worried about what was going on at home, and when I was at home I was worried about what was going on at work!
Maura: That’s right.