I think this is just a result of too many things grabbing attention - especially in almost everyone's career this seemed to be the norm for the last 15 years or so. The jobs we do, the tools we use, and the structuring of companies and employee hierarchy, projects and general culture have all introduced elements that force you to frequently context switch all the time. Add to that, things on the internet like Social Media, apps pushing useless notifications all the time, Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, etc where things are updated very frequently and if you're participating on those platforms, it creates somewhat of an urge to keep checking new stuff as it comes.
Engineers can choose to have some flexibility, however the managers and upper managers have no breaks, and it kind of sucks for them to zoom in and out of contexts between meetings, and it often makes them lose track of things. If workload is not shared, it very quickly becomes a shitshow altogether. All my managers in my last 3 companies were struggling to keep up with what was going on, and had no rest; they would get pinged about issues even while they were on PTO which seemed inevitable.
Other high context-switching jobs may be those of doctors, stock brokers and analysts (they have to keep tracking a million things every day), lawyers, and sales guys. They come with their own way of causing mental overload quite frequently unfortunately.
Honestly I feel it's the circumstances some of which are in our control that can be adjusted to minimize distractions and remove some of the useless things that we think are not needed at all. It's no wonder that those "distraction elimination" browser plugins and mobile phone apps are a real thing!
Engineers can choose to have some flexibility, however the managers and upper managers have no breaks, and it kind of sucks for them to zoom in and out of contexts between meetings, and it often makes them lose track of things. If workload is not shared, it very quickly becomes a shitshow altogether. All my managers in my last 3 companies were struggling to keep up with what was going on, and had no rest; they would get pinged about issues even while they were on PTO which seemed inevitable.
Other high context-switching jobs may be those of doctors, stock brokers and analysts (they have to keep tracking a million things every day), lawyers, and sales guys. They come with their own way of causing mental overload quite frequently unfortunately.
Honestly I feel it's the circumstances some of which are in our control that can be adjusted to minimize distractions and remove some of the useless things that we think are not needed at all. It's no wonder that those "distraction elimination" browser plugins and mobile phone apps are a real thing!