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Google Ventures' Joe Kraus: 'We're creating a culture of distraction'

Google Ventures' Joe Kraus: 'We're creating a culture of distraction'

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Joe Kraus, a Partner at Google Ventures, addresses our need for constant distractions while divvying up solutions to growing problem.

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We've all been there: whether it be a half-second lull in conversation or a pop-up notification, your mind jumps out of the moment and into another, only to be pulled away once more, onto the next distraction. Despite our capacity to easily switch from one subject to another, that skill of multitasking (or rather, the perception of skill) might be doing more harm than good. Joe Kraus, a Partner at Google Ventures, put together a presentation explaining how our inability to concentrate has negatively affected the culture of always-connected users and what we can do to convert "distraction" into "attention."

Kraus points out a number of bad habits — like how we check our smartphones 27 times a day and that teenage girls send 4,000 text messages a month — stressing exactly how much our behavior is detrimental to human interaction. Despite the obvious problem, he seems mindful of the fact that our gadgets play an important role in our lives. If you haven't already clicked elsewhere, check out a video of the entire presentation below or, if reading is your thing, Kraus has provided a transcript.