Why can't I concentrate?

New research from Carnegie Mellon University confirms what we already knew: Yes, distraction does make us stupider. The little red flag at the bottom of my computer screen is not a harmless little reminder that I am not alone in the world. It is a constant invitation not to finish a thought. A constant temptation to escape into the urgently irrelevant so as to avoid the complexity and pain of completing a task.

Carnegie Mellon researchers found that being interrupted twice during a simple comprehension test made people answer the questions with 20 percent less accuracy. What Carnegie Mellon didn’t study is how compulsively I turn to e-mail, Facebook and the web to save me from the painful task of thinking itself. I would so much rather surf than think, dive into the half-formed thoughts of others than deal with the incomplete task of thinking in front of me.

So I invent reasons to be diverted. I give in over and over to the impulse to look something up rather than think something through.