Olympic speedskating is on at the same time as the lecture for “Research Methods and Techniques of Social Neuroscience.” Olympic speedskating happens for three days once every four years. “Research Methods and Techniques of Social Neuroscience” holds lectures twice a week between February and April.
The guy in front of me is playing a live stream of speedskating on his iPad while taking notes. It’s a fair bet to say that he’s Dutch.
I can think of three possible decisions at this point.
- Being “responsible”: ignore the live stream, focus on the boring Powerpoint slides and what the lecturer is saying.
- Being “responsible”, but in a different way: ignore the lecturer and boring Powerpoint slides, focus on the speedskating race to fulfill my duties and goals as an international student who wants to learn more about my host country’s culture.
- Being indecisive: take a half-assed approach and split my attention to the lecturer and the live stream 50/50. If the current scientific literature on multi-tasking is correct, this means diminished quality and performance on both tasks.
I could only see the corner of the screen without craning my neck or feeling self-conscious, so the decision was already made for me (i.e. option #1).
But let’s say I had a full view of both the screen and the lecturer.
Option #2 is tempting, but the fact that I am watching a mute screen with the lecturer speaking as background noise means that I won’t be entirely enjoying the speedskating. If I really wanted to give the speedskating event the attention it deserves, it would have been better to just stay home and watch the live stream. Or even better, watch the event with other enthusiastic friends.
Option #3 is like wanting everything without the sacrifice. A sort of greed that doesn’t involve money. Rather than making a decision, I flip-flop around the delicious choices and end up worse off than if I had just stuck with one. Had the iPad screen been unobstructed by the gentleman’s back, there’s a good chance I’d have chosen this option.
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This is an innocent example. Lacking attention in one lecture won’t wreck my academic career.
But what happens when I’m indecisive in more important things? (i.e. deciding who I choose to spend my time with, deciding what my priorities are in life?). The result would not be nearly as entertaining to read about.
