I came across the article ‘Can you finish this article without being interrupted?‘ which discusses the world of multi-tasking and how it has a bigger impact on IQ than marijuana.

In the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice to his son: "There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time."

William James suggests that the ability to focus develops as we age:

In contrast, the youthful mind is characterized by an "extreme mobility of the attention" that "makes the child seem to belong less to himself than to every object which happens to catch his notice."

Like Chesterfield, James believed the transition from youthful distraction to mature attention was in large part the result of personal mastery and discipline – and so was illustrative of character.

"The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again," he wrote, "is the very root of judgment, character and will."

Another article on the topic here. With the evolution of ‘open plan offices’ which ‘supposedly’ make us collaborate better (at the cost of some privacy to focus) and devices the permeate our daily lives (We should be so lucky to live in the Mad Men generation where you could not bring your work home), it is no wonder.

That being said, I turn my laptop and phone off when I get home. There must be some peace.