As a generation that has grown up knowing only a connected world joins the workforce, what impact is it having ?
Recent comments by actress Emma Thompson about ‘the lemming generation’ sound a warning business should heed. Thompson talks about what could happen to a generation connected 24/7 and warns of not knowing what this constant connectivity is doing to us.
Looking at the impact constant connectivity is having on young people is essential for business.
For far too many of us – not just young people – there is a new ‘distracted norm’. Focus and concentration are vital skills many of us have let slip away.
Can you concentrate on a task uninterrupted for 30 minutes? For one hour? Or only for 10 minutes? Do tasks take you longer than they should because you are so frequently distracted?
If young people – used to constant interruptions from buzzing handsets – join the world of work without the ability to concentrate for a substantial length of time, they will struggle when given a lengthy task. This has a huge impact on productivity.
If a task is too difficult or too boring, instead of working through this and sticking with it, the easy answer is to turn to a distraction.
The easy work gets done – checking and updating social media, writing emails, or browsing online – while the tricky task gets put to one side, or takes far longer than it should to complete.
While many of the new skills young people have are useful, we musn’t forget the balance the old skills provide.
Another area where behaviour has changed is thinking.
One teacher told me about the pupils in their class who want an answer straight away, rather than thinking of the answer or remembering the answer for themselves. Why is this? Because we’re used to asking Google.
This is an example of a transactive memory system, where the information is somewhere other than in our own minds.
We have become used to this way of finding information. But we need to make sure that we don’t neglect traditional thinking skills.
For innovation and creativity we need to be able to think deeply and at length (which is unlikely to happen if you are distracted two minutes into the thought process by another incoming ‘ping’).
Giving in to distraction produces half-formed thoughts, unoriginal thinking, and the same old arguments again and again.
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