The Curtain of Distraction has gained notoriety approaching March Madness as Arizona State University basketball fans demonstrated success in interfering with their opponent’s free-throw shooting. A black curtain on poles, strategically placed behind the visiting team hoop, suddenly opens at the time of a free-throw shot revealing bizarre scenes such as two people with unicorn masks bumping noses, or an overweight character swinging a wrecking ball. The Harvard College Sports Analysis Collective reports that the antics resulted in the opponents losing 1.41 points per game. In the world of sports, distractions count.
Distractions in the OR? What we’re learning from basketball fans may translate to other areas. Here’s a study of the influence of noise in the operating room (OR) following 64 male patients who required an inguinal hernia repair. A noise meter in the OR measured the sound level every 10 minutes and patients were followed postoperatively for 30 days to measure infection rates. Only five patients suffered post-op infections, but in reviewing the noise levels, those five patients, unlike the others, had procedures that at 50 minutes (typically near the end of surgery when the wound was being closed), revealed a decibel reading 10 times higher than at the beginning of the operation, related to “music and nonrelated patient conversation.” Wound closure is known as a critical time when infection can be seeded. The researchers concluded that while music is thought to be calming, it may actually be a distraction, particularly to less-experienced surgeons.
Gender and Safer Driving. Concerns abound regarding less-experienced adolescent drivers and cell phones. A just-published study compared differences between teenage males and females by asking more than 700 16 year-olds from Pennsylvania and New Jersey to self-report how safe they were as drivers and what were among their driving habits. The results found that when asked on a scale of 1 to 6 if they felt they were safe drivers, 32 percent of males reported they were extremely safe compared to only 18 percent of females. Yet, the males also reported significantly more use of cell phones, texting, eating, drinking or smoking when driving compared to the females. Because the teenage male drivers perceived themselves as being safe drivers despite engaging in distracted driving, parents should note that the researchers suggest gender-specific education may be warranted.
Growing whiskers. Our animal counterparts fight distractions by the use of their whiskers. With most mammals, whiskers offer a tactile sensation that helps maintain a focus on navigation, object recognition, and social interactions. Especially inside the dark underground tunnels of their habitat, rodents will depend on purposeful movements of some 35 specialized snout hairs to maintain attention to their tasks. While humans have the logical reasoning power of the brain, rodents, with each whisker’s unique shape and length conveying individualized information, are similarly able to manage strategies comparable to a chess game.
So the choice is to grow some whiskers or focus our brains to assess our situation and find the winning solution. The former requires genetic manipulation, but the latter just requires us to use our heads.