If you're getting down on yourself about your ability to get distracted so easily at work, you may want to reconsider your feelings - a new report by Steelcase, a workplace solutions company, took the data gathered by neuroscientists and psychological researchers and analyzed them to create their unique report, which claims that getting distracted at work may be indicative of higher intelligence levels.
"Employers are always on the lookout for the brightest people available, however the difficulty to withstand multiple tasks and distractions in the office affects smart people in the same way as everyone else, if not more," said Bostan Ljubic, vice president of Steelcase.
The report found that the brightest people typically have a more difficult time deciding which tasks are the most important, ultimately leading to distraction and "a feeling of inadequacy and inability to deal with the workload as a whole," psychiatrist Ned Hallowell told the Telegraph.
The study examined 10,000 workers from 17 different countries and in addition to the connection between distraction and intelligence, the team also found that the inability to focus at work is also connected to the increased use of technology in the workplace, claiming that the average office worker succumbs to distraction once every three minutes, according to The Independent.
"The ways in which we work are changing more rapidly than ever before and the brain is being subjected to stresses and distractions which can lead to overload and statistics show that distractions in the workplace are on the rise," Ljubic said.
"While our higher-level cognitive skills distinguish us from other mammals, being attuned to what's going on around us is also embedded in our evolution, a key to survival," the researchers wrote. "This means that today's way of working has become a Catch 22: We're taking our natural inclination to be distracted and training our brains to be even more so."
