SBT has written about chimps, goats, dogs, cats, bats, and insects in the workplace. But there is a new species proliferating in cubicles—digital omnivores!
Author Tim Lloyd, writing in venturebeat.com, warns that these digital omnivores are threatening the extinction of workers’ attention spans.
Why? Lloyd says digital omnivores are ravenous, consuming information from multiple media at one time—Smartphones, tablets, and laptops—and even televisions! And how about those ear buds?
Citing the Deloitte® “State of the Media Democracy” survey, Lloyd says that digital consumption habits for Americans over the age of 14 increased by an incredible 160 percent just between 2011 and 2012!
And as digital consumption from multiple sources rises, concentration suffers—and mistakes increase. It’s just biology; human brains can only pay attention to just so much info input simultaneously.
What can you do to rid your workplace of these beasts? No exterminator is necessary; just update your media use policy to limit use of personal digital equipment on the job. And hold workers accountable for persistence in shoddy work.