Wanna Be Sedated

From an article in New York magazine, by Jennifer Senior:

In 2005, a psychiatrist at King's College London did a study in which one group was asked to take an IQ test while doing nothing, and a second group to take an IQ test while distracted by e-mails and ringing telephones. The uninterrupted group did better by an average of ten points, which wasn't much of a surprise. What was a surprise is that the e-mailers also did worse, by an average of six points, than a group in a similar study that had been tested while stoned.

Crap - that's bad. Your IQ is lower while constantly interrupted than while stoned? (What about constantly interrupted and stoned? Someone should test that.) I read a lot about writers who write with the TV or radio on, who can't write without music or whatever, and I think I'm crazy. I can't have anything at all when I write - my ideal location is a sensory deprivation chamber. I can't focus with noise of any kind. Now I know why.

Funny, 'cos I work in a cubicle farm, and the interruptions are nonstop all day. If we could turn the phones off, we'd all be geniuses.

One more thing about James Bond - off topic, because I can't concentrate. As much as I adored it, I'm glad Clive Owen didn't take the role. It just wasn't... Clive. Ya know?

Still... Clive in a tux instead of his scruffy, unkempt suit in Children of Men. Le sigh.