The Epidemic of Digital Distraction 159
asto21 writes "Almost no one does just one thing anymore. The screens won't let us. And in an incredible burst of human evolution, our minds have grown accustomed to monitoring multiple inputs at once. Yeah, you're reading this post. But we're nearly three paragraphs in. So if you're anything like me, it's about that time to check Twitter, count the additions to your Google Plus circles, read a handful of new incoming email messages, and chime in on a couple of ongoing instant message conversations. But are we paying less attention to important details?"
Important details? Where? (Score:1)
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Beyond that how can this be the product of evolution, rather than the brain itself simply adapting? We're at best fifteen years into the information age. Where is the natural selection, survival of the fittest, and all that? There isn't any. The brain has always been able to cope with multiple streams of information, we're just exercising it more and more in this arena.
Interesting... (Score:2)
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Your mistake, of course, was not tweeting and checking Facebook after every paragraph. This way you can forget about whatever point he was failing to make as you progress through the post in small pieces that don't fit together.
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tl;dr:
if you want to tell people something boring; put it in a video add some explosions and other movie effects.
(I worked this out by starting reading the paragraphs in the article in reverse order - that seems about the best way this time round)
This was possibly the most painful post selecting my slashdot nick has inflicted on my so far.
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It's one of the more unreadable pieces of text I've come across recently... and given most of the competition for that prize is also online, that's saying something.
Not sure the author's theory/point really worked! If the article does read well to some people, that's rather worrying.
yes (Score:1)
What utter nonsense (Score:4, Insightful)
The screens won't let us?
Yes they will. Seriously! Just close all the windows you have open to things that distract you. The screens won't open them back up! I promise!
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The screens won't let us?
Yes they will. Seriously! Just close all the windows you have open to things that distract you. The screens won't open them back up! I promise!
You obviously haven't run into rotating popup adds. Close one and two more open. ;-)
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The screens won't let us?
Yes they will. Seriously! Just close all the windows you have open to things that distract you. The screens won't open them back up! I promise!
Actually, I close iTunes and the screens open it back up 3 or 4 more times...
It must be the screens!
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but it's so tempting.
with dos with no multi-running.. if you had a word processor loaded up, that's what you had loaded up. no family guy in little window, no realtime chats full of the news, no newssites with potentially game changing and career destroying news to keep updated of, no checking of incoming mail or status of other people. you had a somewhat clearer path towards getting your job done- now the workflow is constantly the same and never changes and you have to use some web services to search for
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Original concept (Score:4, Informative)
Quick, someone make a reply claiming they don't suffer from this type of thing, but then pretending to get distracted by something else part way through typing it! It will be hilarious, and not at all obvious!
(I wonder how long until someone replies point out that my post is also a rather unoriginal thing to say...)
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Intentional Turtles is a great band name.
Re:Turtles! (Score:2)
I was gonna make a joke about your Turtles but then I had to check Wikipedia to remember the other half of your reference.
Google says Wikipedia's entry of the Pangu creation myth has Turtles in there so I went to look at that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pangu [wikipedia.org]
"In some versions of the story, Pangu is aided in this task by the four most prominent beasts, namely the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon."
Then the reference to Phoenix distracted me because that's the Chinese one, not the Egyptian one.
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TRYING TO CONCENTRATE HERE! (Score:2)
Can we please keep the pointless posts to a minimum?
Re:Original concept (Score:4, Funny)
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Yo dawg, I heard you like meta jokes, so I put a meta joke in your meta joke so you can laugh while you laugh.
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I was going to say your post was unoriginal... OMG Ponies!!!
I hereby name this breakthrough in human evolution (Score:1)
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So do the pharmaceutical companies!
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Singletasking, as in the dogged focus on one damn thing at a time, can be as big a problem as out-of-control ADHD.
I would have been first post (Score:2)
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Crap, did I just post that online?
Yes, and don't call me Crap!
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Hi, it's me, Justin Bieber. You know what, I'm sooo tired of all these Justin Bieber jokes. You guys only invent them because you envy my life and the money I have. C'mon, let's face it, the reality is this: You are all wankers and losers. If I wank, I do it because I want to do it. If you jerk off in your mom's bedroom, you do it because nobody likes you, because you have no money and aren't famous and let's face it: Girls just LOVE guys that are famous and have money. I can get into any disco they won't l
Yes, we are paying less attention (Score:5, Informative)
We used to call this condition, having our attention hopping from one thing to another to another in quick succession, "running around like a chicken with it's head cut off". You deal with a lot of things, but you don't have time to really pay attention to any one of them because your attention needs to hop to the next. You waste time shifting mental gears, and more time picking up your train of thought for this item. In computer science we call it "thrashing", and it's something to be avoided because the overhead of context-switching eats up cycles that could be used for actual work. In extreme cases it gets so bad the system's doing nothing but thrash, no actual work gets done because all the cycles are eaten up by swapping and context switching. Humans are vulnerable to the same thing.
That's why geeks value being "in the zone" so much. It's nothing mysterious, it's just the condition of being able to focus on one specific thing without interruption, and it makes you so much more productive (hence why geeks seek it out).
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And so consume tons and tons of caffeine xD.
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I can tell you exceeded those sepcific concentrations.
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Yes, distractions are everywhere these days. What I wonder is, will the new generation see this as "normal" background distraction? We have an entire generation now that don't remember a time before cell phones and the WWW. Presumably they are comfortable with this level of distraction, but does anyone have data on how this affects job performance?
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Re:Zone (Score:2)
Geeks like to be in the zone to do their work, but other people want their answers NOW.
Double standard? (Score:1)
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Why yes it is evolution. If the drugs don't kill off the kids, the adults are better and stronger, and will breed new kids who can multi-task even when dosed with large amounts of drugs. We are solving the problem of drunk driving one generation at a time. In a hundred years a person could be drunk to the point of death but have enough mental facility to drive a car safely.
Human multitasking is a myth (Score:5, Informative)
"People can't multitask very well, and when people say they can, they're deluding themselves," said neuroscientist Earl Miller. And, he said, "The brain is very good at deluding itself."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794 [npr.org]
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"People can't multitask very well, and when people say they can, they're deluding themselves," said neuroscientist Earl Miller. And, he said, "The brain is very good at deluding itself."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95256794 [npr.org]
spare me... Its like saying "people can't run very well" or "people aren't very tall". There's a nice bell curve and both jobs and personal satisfaction naturally select following the Peter Principle. The village idiot maxes out his Peter Principle at doing about one thing at a time. The short order cook from the article apparently maxes out around two dozen or whatever. Everyone else bell curves in the middle.
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The village idiot maxes out his Peter Principle at doing about one thing at a time. The short order cook from the article apparently maxes out around two dozen or whatever. Everyone else bell curves in the middle.
All right! I made it up to village idiot! ... seriously, though... I want to a see a study done on a test course with a wide range of drivers that makes them do various other things while they drive, see just how good people can be at multitasking while some critical task is supposed to be getting done.
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No, you spare us. Put down the fucking box while you're driving. The ego you save may be your own.
Thank you.
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... actually - we are extremely good at multitasking! In fact, my heart is beating at the same time I'm breathing, thankfully. Not to mention all of the disease my body is fighting right now. Don't even get me started about my hormonal systems.
Although we may not be great at being conscious of many things at once.
An analogy would be a micro-controller/FPGA with many peripherals, but one CPU core.
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My brain is so good at deluding itself that it can delude itself while I do three other things at the same time.
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Dr Miller apparently never did any serious cooking. Are you aware how much task-switching and parallel monitoring is involved in preparing a multi-course meal alone for a couple of guys? No delusions involved, as you would taste the results of someone only believing he can handle the parallel task load...
Your analogy isn't very good because it forgets that your brain does most analog tasks based on repetition, and therefore it is is handling most of that meal preparation subconciously. Blame it on muscle memory, even. If you're talking with the couple of guys, then you're in a larger percent consciously dealing with them and just using your eyes to look at different pots, pans and ingredients as they make their way in and out of the fire. Your hands are used to handling orders so that your knife won't cut y
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Dr Miller may or may not have done any serious cooking, but he almost certainly understands something you don't: The plural of anecdote is not data. (He probably also understands something else you're innocent of: bell curves.)
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And, he said, "The brain is very good at deluding itself."
But not while it's busy doing something else.
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and when people say they can, they're deluding themselves
This is completely incorrect. If anyone says otherwise, they are clearly deluding themselves!
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Who needs proof? Clearly anyone who disagrees with me is deluding themselves. The brain is very good at doing so, after all. Saying that is all the proof that I need...
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Small Blessings (Score:3)
'So if you're anything like me, ...'
Thank Vishnu I'm not.
Wow. What crap. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have three friends who are accomplished novelists. Two of them have cut off all Internet access to their homes. The other leaves his devices behind and sits in an unconnected cafe with a pen and a stack of paper for several hours a day. They know that even their impressive abilities to concentrate can't compete with a connected computer.
This guy comes up with a preposterous thesis and declares anyone who doesn't fit in with his world view is a loser. "If you're not trying to do 5 different digital things at a time, it's because you've given up, not because you actually want to concentrate on a single task."
He also ignores all the evidence that we aren't as good at multitasking as we thing we are.
Sometimes it gets that desperate. (Score:3)
I have three friends who are accomplished novelists. Two of them have cut off all Internet access to their homes. The other leaves his devices behind and sits in an unconnected cafe with a pen and a stack of paper for several hours a day.
Years ago, Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle had taken an advance on a book, and were getting very close to deadline with not much written. So they went off to an isolated cabin to write. They each wrote for half the day, taking turns; one sleeping during the day. The resulting book was reasonably good, and finished on time.
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There is a story (citation needed?) that Douglas Adams wrote So long and thanks for all the fish while locked in a hotel bathroom while shoving pages under the door to his agent. He is also quoted as saying: I love deadlines, I love the wooshing sound they make as they pass by.
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The article may be anti-multitasking, but there is a definite streak of resignation.
"Almost no one does just one thing anymore. The screens won't let us."
His friends "can't compete with a connected computer," no one can avoid multitasking, " the screens won't let us."
You show you're anti-multitasking by not multitasking, not by multitasking but complaining about it.
I would have posted the frist psot! (Score:2)
re:The Epidemic of Digital Distraction (Score:1)
I'm a serial multi-tasker (Score:1)
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Interrupt overhead... (Score:2)
Multitasking is fine, as long as none of the tasks really requires 100% of your attention. /. and listening to music and playing roguelikes, but when I'm working on a tough bit of program logic, I can't stand to be interrupted for anything. That's when I hide all the other windows so I can concentrate.
I can switch off surfing blogs and
which is funnier (Score:5, Insightful)
But we're nearly three paragraphs in.
I'm not sure which is funnier -- that the sentence was left in the /. summary, or that it appears in the fourth paragraph of TFA.
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I guess he must have gotten distracted while editing. Reminds me of when I used to sign my posts here:
-Steve
but every once in a while (read: a few times a week), I would be about done, sign the post...then realize I want to add something at the end... add it, but now my original was scrolled out of the visible text box... so I would sign it and end up posting like this:
-Steve
-Steve
Wish I could mod Slashdot stories themselves (Score:5, Insightful)
This one deserves "-1, self-delusional" if anything does.
People haven't evolved to efficiently handle multiple inputs at once. The linked story certainly makes that statement, but provides absolutely no supporting evidence. If anything, it demonstrates the opposite with lines such as this: "It's getting harder to concentrate on anything, even the stuff that's clearly the most important." The poorly-written anecdotes don't show the author or his friends dealing well with all these inputs - they demonstrate the difficulty all parties are having coping. Another example is the part about his novelist friends who've removed all internet access from their homes because otherwise they can't concentrate on their work.
Frankly, most of the article reads like - at best - a Readers' Digest submission. But it is Gizmodo, so there you go.
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Author also does not get the idea of evolution.
What one should expect in case humanity evolves under the pressure of multitasking is that either
If these effects exist, they can only be seen after several generations.
I strongly suggest that the author turns off his electronic media and t
I prefer to focus (Score:4, Insightful)
When I need to do something important, I focus. No distractions, just pay attention.
Now, when goofing off, it's OK to multitask, but not when it's important to get it right.
It may just be a young people's problem. Us old farts know that if you want to do something right, you need to pay attention.
In the old days... (Score:1)
Phew! (Score:2)
asto21 writes:
I'd blow my brains out before that ever happened.
I am still capable of reading "three paragraphs" without the need to "check Twitter, count the additions to Google Plus circles, read a handful of new incoming email messages, and chime in on a couple of ongoing instant message conversations".
For one thing, "instant message conversation" is an oxymoron.
"But are we paying less attention to important..." (Score:5, Funny)
tl;dr
Slashdot (Score:2)
I should be working on a problem with our backup system and yet here I am reading /.
sorry, (Score:1)
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Wrong Question. (Score:2)
No, you're learning what the important details actually are.
NOT EVOLUTION (Score:2)
The reality is... nobody does this. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've learned over the years that prioritizing, and putting items/tasks/people on "the back burner" (even if for a few minutes) has resulted in an increase in quality of work, and overall sanity. Focus on a task. Only shift gears if absolutely necessary (priorities will always do this), or when there is a lull of activity (waiting on approvals, server builds, etc.).
Don't lie to me! You know when you're answering 2 IM conversations with a phone in your ear, you're cutting corners, missing information, and just trying to shut someone the hell up, so you can slow down and take a breath.... so politely put them off.
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You know when you're answering 2 IM conversations with a phone in your ear, you're cutting corners, missing information, and just trying to shut someone the hell up, so you can slow down and take a breath.... so politely put them off.
I am not sure there is a way to politely put someone off any more. The closest you can do is to say "hey, I'm kinda busy here, can I call you back?" But when someone says that to me, it throws me off for a second or so at the very least, and may leave me ticked off depending on
show me the facts or shut up (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, right. "evolved" - in less than one generation. Someone here desperately needs to go back to evolution 101 and figure out what the term means.
So you really mean "adapt", yes? Maybe you should do less Twitter checking while you're writing blog postings. Because so far, all the studies that I have read or read about strongly indicate that so-called multitasking is highly detrimental to all the covered tasks. Flow and concentration remain as powerful tools as they are, because - surprise, surprise - the human brain really hasn't changed all that much in the last 1000 or so years. It is, however, much more adaptable than we thought for a long time, and if you give it the same tasks over and over, it will learn to cope with them. Somehow. That doesn't necessarily mean good.
Oh, and then there are all these little psychological facts that we've uncovered over the past century or so, that all indicate that one of the strongest and most reliable powers of the brain is the ability to delude itself. It is more than fascinating what people believe inside their heads and how little that sometimes has to do with outside reality. Book hint "Mistakes were made (but not by me)".
So you may think that your brain has evolved to cope with the demands of modern multi-channel communication. Now be scientific and make the test whether
a) anything critical really is different in your brain compared to someone who doesn't do this kind of attention-hopping
b) what you believe about yourself and your ability to handle multiple inputs simultaneously or in rapid succession is at all true
check your assumptions first. Then, and only then, write something that requires them to be true in order to make any sense at all.
"Mistakes were made, but not by me" (Score:2)
http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0151010986 [amazon.com]
To second that book recommendation. Great post.
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority [wikipedia.org]
"Illusory superiority is a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and abilities and to underestimate their negative qualities, relative to others. This is evident in a variety of areas including intelligence, performance on tasks or tests, and the possession of desirable characteristics or personality traits
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Actually, our brains really evolved. [...] Not everything is genetics.
No, but evolution is. You are, again, talking about adaptating, education, or some other method of change. I didn't say those don't exist. But evolution is a specific concept that pretty much requires genetics (or something similar).
The important difference is that evolution passes changes on to the next generations, while training (education, etc.) must be repeated by the next generations.
In an extended sense, this can be called evolution too.
You can't simply extend the meaning of scientific terms beyond recognition. They have a defined meaning for a reason.
Unfortunately it had side-effects, like the ability to say "I like saving the planet." while at the same time throwing a soda can and plastic wrap out of the car window. That kind of dissociated thinking.
Th
Or for the straight talk... (Score:2)
Completely offtopic (Score:3)
I know this is completely off topic, but pretentious assholes like this writer are the reason people hate you Apple Fanboi idiots.
When I woke up this morning, I was just a writer and tech investor, tucked behind the warm glow of my 27-inch Apple monitor.
Did you really need to specify it was a 27" APPLE monitor? Did it add anything to that sentence, other than to underscore you're a prick? No, it didn't. The author could just as easily have said "the warm glow of my monitor." and had the same effect. But instead he had to underscore it was an APPLE monitor... like it was something SPECIAL and UNIQUE! Like he was COOL for having an Apple.
On a recent morning, my wife was busy with several work related tasks on her Macbook Air when our two year-old daughter
And the author does it again... couldn't just say "Laptop" or "Computer," but had to say Macbook Air! Again, like it was unique or special. News flash! Lots of people have those things and they can be acquired by anyone wishing to do so by traveling to your nearest web browser, Apple Store, Best Buy or other purveyor of overpriced shiny shit.
So just a note, it's exactly this kind of shit that makes people who haven't fallen under the spell of bullshit that Jobs has convinced hipster idiots that Apple products are so cool that they need to be identified separately from everything else. You are unique for using Apple Products, just like the other ten million (or however many) people who use the exact same product.
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You do realize that you look like a much bigger asshole for turning an offhanded comment into such a big deal?
The only thing worse than a fan of Apple products is a person who goes off their head the moment they see someone using or mentioning Apple products. And "Fanboi"? Really? Holy shit, grow up.
It's not an offhanded comment. It's the author being a pretentious prick, just like every other Apple user. This is me expounding on the fact.
You, Mr. AC, are also a giant asshole for posting as AC.
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Mostly agree with you but then again...
When you speak about other items do you always use the generic term? Is it the car or is it the Acura? Is it the bike or is it the Cervelo?
Mostly, yes and most everyone I know does the same. I never call my car the VW or the Dodge unless I need to specifically differentiate between the two for some purpose. But I sure as hell don't say the "Dodge D150 RAM" when I need to differentiate. If there was some specific reason to differentiate his monitor between any generic monitor and an Apple monitor, then I could see the case for stating it's an Apple monitor. But for the purposes of the article, there was no reason except to be pretentious.
I myself refer to my computers as the macbook and the dell. I don't specify that it's a macbook PRO and that it's 13". I also don't give specs on the Dell and I could just as easily call it the office or the windows laptop.
I think that calling something a macbook, imac, ipad or iphone is a reflection of a great branding effort from Apple.
An
Evolution? (Score:2)
Evolution does not move that fast, nor does it work that way. The basic currency of evolution is offspring and mutation. I am willing to admit that it is possible that there have been one or more mutations in genes that are "for" multitasking in humans. However, do the individuals with those genes have more offspring than the ones who do not? Have there been enough generations since the advent of computers for those genes to increase in frequency in the gene pool to equate to "an incredible burst of hum
The Zombie Apocalypse (Score:2)
Is already upon us. Ever try to walk down 34th street in Manhattan while everyone else going the other way is engrossed in their smartphones? They're not trying to eat your brain but they're equally brain-dead, lumbering, and clumsy.
I can only imagine what it's going to be like when augmented reality hits the mainstream.
As a huge tech booster, participant, and builder, I gotta say there's a time and a place, people, a time and a place. If you're running into things or walking out into the middle of Broad
CNN (Score:2)
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This article is crap. The human mind is typically able to manage 7 pieces of information at once. The difference now is that we're given more than 7 pieces of information to pay attention to at once, so the mind prioritizes what information is most important to it and that's when details are dropped.
Habitual multitaskers do it badly (Score:3)
We dealt with multitasking here before, and how badly people do it [slashdot.org]. Empirically, those who rate themselves good at multitasking are usually worse at it [bbc.co.uk] than those who rate themselves poorly.
It's not called "distracting" without reason.
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No.
That reference comes from a paper written by George Miller covering a memorization study he conducted, that was mostly about memorizing random facts. The 'rule of 7' that was pulled from it has been misapplied to everything under the sun.
In Miller's words:
http://members.shaw.ca/philip.sharman/myth.html [members.shaw.ca]
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Thank you for the correction. The actual number is currently believed to be 3-4. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/piq.20099/abstract;jsessionid=FEA7D98A86323E4886495C333ADED5A5.d01t01 [wiley.com]