IT#17 Social ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and what it means for your UI

#Social #Attenton #AttentionOverload #Neurophysiology #Locality #ITManagement #ITDesign #UI

In the United States there is a legitimate diagnosis called Attention Deficit Disorder. Today we’ve got it on the whole society level. We overload people, their brains and cognitive abilities with irrelevant disruptions and information. This article talks about how to account for it in UI and workflow design.

Who owns your time?

It’s 2am. You just finished the last important task for today and plan to go to sleep. But there is one more small thing – to pay a bill. You log in to online bank and... ouch... the bank decides that you absolutely need to read changes in the terms of service and agree to them. Like you have an option to disagree, right... And right after, online bank UI starts to wonder if you want a new credit card with this new shiny design on it. After all, how can you be uninterested? They’ve printed a cute husky dog on it! It takes a few clicks to convince them that you are not interested. Finally, at 2:40am you pay the bill and now are free to go to bed.

Sounds familiar?

The modern connected world makes a lot of demands on your time and attention. This was not the case before. A hunter-gatherer people used their attention to what really mattered to them. Like leopard in bushes, juicy bright red fruit on the tree or a bored female tribe member. They did not read or accept the changed terms of service. They did not postpone a reminder about tomorrow's tribal hunt because it prevented them from dancing around the tribal fire. They did not have a tribal Facebook page to check every five minutes because other members of the tribe would expect it.

Manhattan Island derives its name from its earliest inhabitants...

...the Manhattan Indians. They were a peaceful tribe, setting traps, fishing, hunting.

“The Seven Year Itch” movie.

Similarly relaxed lifestyle (compared to today) continued for very long including feudal times and even capitalism period. People always had to work hard, but only later did the demand for their attention grow so much. We always paid attention to what mattered to us, and unless you found yourself at the Eastern bazaar, other people did not require much of your attention.

A Locality Principle

There is another aspect of it. Sometimes we volunteer our attention to some geopolitical things. It’s ok to sympathize with victims on another end of the Earth. However, look at it from a historical point of view.

A mere 300 years ago you would not even know about those events. 300 years out of 7 thousand years of human history and almost a million years of human evolution. All the news you would have at the time been from the nearest small town, and even that when one of your fellow villagers brought it back after selling vegetables there. Even if you were a baron of that town, your news would be local. Your news about the Middle East will come with a couple decades delay from those who participated in the Crusades. All you would know about China would be “the dragons live there”. If you are lucky to get a rare manuscript about a trip to"Moscovia”of a French geographer, you would read how a huge Cossack with balalaika served him vodka under a tall bushy “Klyukva” (cranberry) tree.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to feel for people on another end of the Earth. I’m saying that our hearts did not evolve to feel for sorrows of 8 billion other people. Basically, you have to choose: feel or live.

And that’s not easy. We did not evolve to be indifferent to other people's pain either. And mass media knows that. It will feed you with other people's pain. Only it will be the pain of people, they want you to know. You still won’t know about most atrocities happening in the world.

You doubt it? Did you know that the war in Ethiopia in 2020-2022 took about 600 000 lives? Maybe you’ve heard about ~1 million Tutsis killed in 100 days in 1994 in Rwanda? Can you name number of Iraqis killed as a result of “bringing them the democracy” by Western alliance?

This feeling for other people does not make you a better human, it makes you a manipulated human. And it also feeds on your attention, stress and health. With all that you pay for other people's profits.

Realize that mass media and many social platforms are the means of manipulation. If you want to feel for people on another end of Earth, this is your choice. But learn about them from a more reliable source than paid talking heads on TV or the Internet.

A little neurophysiology

It may look like a small stuff. Why worry? How long does it take to click “Accept” button? After all, nobody really reads EULAs and Terms of Service docs. True, not much. Unless it happens too often. And if it does, there is a problem.

No, not because it annoys people. Although that’s not nice either. There is a good and very important reason why it annoys people. You see, attention is not something unlimited. It’s a function of our brain. Specifically, Prefrontal Cortex (PFC). Check my other article "IT#4 Brain, glia cells and the difference between an industrial and knowledge worker”.

Attention is a function of the brain, and brain activity is a limited resource. Renewable, but limited. It burns glucose using oxygen, and so it’s limited by the speed the blood brings glucose and oxygen to it.

The historically normal attention demand was always ok. It did not use too much glucose and oxygen. To be precise, it did, but in short spikes, for example, to run away from a predator or fight another human. But now we are continuously getting too much of it. Our brains are not fit evolutionary for doing that.

A similar thing happens with the “burnout” coming from occupational stress. It damages the amygdala and prefrontal cortex parts of the brain. A demand for attention that is too high creates stress. Stress, well, see above, it damages your brain. So, no surprise that it highly annoys you. You are entitled to be annoyed. That’s the least to expect when someone damages your brain.

From where does it come?

As already mentioned, demands on our attention were always historically much lower. The circle of communication of an average person always contained very few people, a dozen maybe a little more. A mother with 5 children was considered almost a champion by the number of distractions she had to bear in everyday life. By the end of the 19th Century stockbrokers joined them. The rest of the population did not have it. Until the end of the 20th Century.

Now with Internet we have:

    1. The employer and corp email and chat.

    2. 5-10 banks.

    3. 2-3 investment companies.

    4. 2-3 insurance companies.

    5. 2-3 personal email providers.

    6. 2-3 social networks.

    7. Mobile phone with WhatsApp, Telegram, Skype...

    8. Arbitrary deadlines set by landlord, various authorities from city to Federal, tax authorities...

    9. Tons of companies that want you to buy something from them.

    10. Charities who are sure they can call your mobile phone.

    11. Election candidates and their support team who are sure that you need to hear that your voice matters.

    12. Spam in your email box and junk mail in your mailbox.

Most of that was not the case historically. If you look at each of these distraction reasons, it’s not much. But together they overload us.

What does it mean for UI and workflow design?

I’m writing it in Microsoft 360 online doc. I need to share it with my other account to finish the article in Google Docs. I click on Share, enter the email and press Send. Expecting that I’m done, I start to type more text. But no! All that newly typed text does not get through because instead of getting to editing, Microsoft 360 happily tells me in a blocking dialog that the link was sent. Do I need it? No. Tell me if you fail. In case of Microsoft 360 failing to send an email that would be pathetic, but I would understand why you present a dialog box. Not about success.

This is just a simple example of distracting user attention when it was not worth it. So, this is basically the rule of thumb: never distract the user unless you absolutely need it. That includes asking questions, switching focus to some other place, and generally sharing with the user something that you feel is very important... for you. You may think it’s important for the user but think again. Very little of what happens in the virtual world is really important for your user.

To be more precise, it’s ok to ask and share info, but as long as it is relevant to what the user is doing right now. There is a theory that when a software engineer goes deep into the task, they may reach some special mental state of high performance. The only thing, it takes around 20 minutes to get into that state. And when you distract from this state, it takes another 20 minutes to get back. Distract them every 20 minutes and no reasonable work will be done for the whole day. Sound good? Not for me, and likely not for you.

And this may happen not just because of an annoying coworker or manager.

This also can be done by software. Just a moment ago Microsoft 360 Word decided that my cursor should be three lines up, so part of this sentence was typed there and had to be moved. On my Linux notebook calendar reminder, if not dismissed of snoozed, grabs the focus even if I am busy with something else. And on my MacMini desktop a message pops up regularly demanding that I loging with my AppleId or... (!) “some services will be not available”! It does not matter that I turned those services down myself, since I don’t want my whole Pictures folder to be uploaded into Apple Cloud, which, by the way, I also don’t use.

This is what UI and workflow designers should avoid. Or they will annoy their users and as a result they will stop using our products.

As UI or workflow designer (or their manager) you are responsible for only a small portion of the problems, most of it comes from how the modern society works. Don’t contribute to it more. Not just to be on the good side, but because that small portion will be a problem for your product acceptance by your users.

What to do about it?

Civilization

On the level of human or, more specifically, western civilization, not much. We are driven by corporate profits, so we cannot really control some of the daemons and hidden processes we have woken up. Just like with ecology, where we are converting our world into a place where humans may be unable to survive, we are getting our information environment to the same state.

In the end, the situation with neglect to human attention limits is not a Soylent Green scenario, our society will adapt. After all, in 1980 HTML tag <block> looked like a cool idea. We learn. Industry will adapt. Academia will adapt and start teaching that.

But for now, we only can raise the awareness.

Individually

Minimize disruptions. Set your landline phone, if you still have one, to silence. Keep your mobile phone at a distance when you work. Identify disruptors and dedicate the time to deal with them, ignore the rest of the time. For example, pay bills only once every two weeks. That’s the time to read Terms of Service and decline credit card offers. The rest of the time don’t log in to their sites. Automatically filter all unwanted emails into a special folder. Don’t send reminders on your calendar unless it’s really needed.

Considering the Locality Principle don’t watch TV and keep a critical attitude about Internet sources. No TV. Only your local town newspapers. On YouTube channels avoid and ignore those want you to “feel”. You should decide whom you feel for, not others.

And most importantly, never let robot (or computer) to hurry you up.

Don’t forget, very few things are really important. Your peace of mind is.

UI and Workflow designer and IT Manager

This is where you can do a lot:

    • Background processes should be background. They just prepare the data which users can see whenever they choose to.

    • No information dialog boxes unless absolutely necessary.

    • Don’t steal focus from other windows and components.

    • Be humble: what’s important for you most likely is not important for the user.

    • If a legal department insists that acceptance from the user is needed, raise the question if the change is really needed and appropriate.

    • Your code should do what your user wants it to do, not your marketing department.

Naturally, there will be cases when you cannot avoid breaking those rules, just because you will be forced to do so. Just don’t do that on your own.

Summary

The World become too interconnected, manipulative and intrusive. Nothing stands on your protection at the time. It’s up to you to defend yourself and your loved ones from that. And don’t be an agent of it yourself.