Science Says Getting Distracted At Work Means You’re More Intelligent

Proof that getting distracted easily totally makes you more clever.

Science Says Getting Distracted At Work Means You're More Intelligent

by Alya Mooro |
Published on

Do you find yourself endlessly opening random new tabs, picking up your phone, staring mindlessly out of the window when you're meant to be working? The list of possible distractions and procastinations are pretty much endless, and on the up. Case in point the fact that in writing just these last two sentences I've breaked to check my Facebook, Twitter, email inbox and phone. Yikes. But not only are you not alone, my friends, but new research suggests that aaaactually, this may mean you're more intelligent. Ha! We'll take that.

Yup, apparently clever people tend to have more difficulty prioritising ideas, meaning they can get flustered and distracted when trying to deal with several things at once. According to Psychiatrist Dr Ned Hallowell, this is because they try to deal with each idea as it arises, which may lead to feelings of inadequacy and an 'inability to deal with the workload as a whole.'

The study, carried out by workplace solutions company Steelcase, looked into 10,000 workers in 17 countries, and found that more than half struggled to concentrate in the office.

They found that the average worker checks their emails every two minutes (!), has around eight programmes open on their computers at a time and is distracted on average once every three minutes.

Predictably, smartphones took up twice as much workers' time as they did in 2012, with most people checking their phones up to 200 times a day. Only? Okay I'm joking... kind of.

Sooo basically next time your boss is like 'HOW AND WHY ARE YOU DISTRACTED AGAIN!?' you can just be like 'sorry, I can't help it, I'm just too freaking smart for my own good.' Oh and... let me know if it works for you, yeah?

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Follow Alya on Twitter @moorizZLA

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.

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