There is a contribution at Carotids.com which talks about health problems related to the technical people work style. He identified couple of usual and repeating patterns – they are: Horrible Sleep Hygiene, Headaches, Back Pain, and Poor Attention Span. Like myself, I had experienced all those in my bad days, but I especially interested on what he talks about on the Poor Attention Span area:
… I believe that “poor attention span” has unique aspects in the geek population because I believe many people become geeks because computers have always been one of the things that keep them stimulated. In fact, if I question someone about their attention span, they never, even have problems staying focused on their computer work. If someone is in the middle of some exciting programming, the focus is always there. Therefore, it is not just a generic “attention” problem.
I believe this relative perception of poor attention span is actually caused by two factors. The first is genetic. The brains of some people are just programmed to multi-task. These people likely excel in a computer-rich environment for this reason. I believe the second factor is a simple training issue…
Sometimes I felt my attention span is less than other people. If I get into the flow, I can focus on the single task and being very productive, but by default I am sort of multi-tasked guy. I see sometimes it can be a good and bad attribute. What do you think?
Health Problems Related to the Geek Lifestyle – [Carotids.com]
