Most nights you can find TV Watch icing various body parts for sports/fitness injuries while watching TV. Does that count as multitasking?
And while driving, one might also be listening to
the radio and/or drinking iced coffee. Does that count as multitasking as well? And if so, what value can we give to that?
And how to make sense of a headline like “TiVo: 99% Multitask While Watching TV”? Sounds like a big number -- and what
exactly is that other 1% doing, anyway? Maybe you would need to read between the lines. Perhaps 99% have multitasked at some time while watching TV.
And there’s more. TiVo says, in
surveying 806 respondents, that 53% multitask every time they watch TV. (For how long? We are not sure). Only 6% say their activities were TV-related (we assume traditional TV viewing-related).
This is stuff media executives can ponder — and then go back to looking at Facebook news feeds.
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Here’s some hopeful news: TiVo said respondents' primary focus -- 73% of the time
-- is on the traditional TV screen. And that makes sense. Who wants to admit they are really distracted?
For the most part, we're talking about recreation/entertainment time. But
multitasking happens all day long, including during work hours.
And that brings us to productivity -- which apparently may be hurting the U.S. economy as a whole. Recently released data showed U.S. productivity has slowed in the past year, only increasing 1.6% in the third
quarter, down from 3.5% in the second quarter. A blip, you say.
According to analysts, we are actually in a slump. After a decade of higher levels productivity, from 1995 to 2005 (attributed
to improved computer software and and high-tech products) now “productivity growth has slowed significantly,” says U.S. News and World Report.
Hmm... Too many screens, too
little time? Maybe too much inflammation, as in the case of my sore shoulders and quads.