An article in the NYT covers the story of a group of neuroscientists on a rafting trip where there is no way to go online.

The rationale for the trip is to debate whether email, phones, IM etc reduce your ability to hit your cognitive peak.  However the most interesting part of the article for me was the piece where one of the scientists makes an observation after a few days:

…the group has become more reflective, quieter, more focused on the surroundings. “If I looked around like this at work, people would think I was goofing off,” he says.

The others are more relaxed too. Mr. Braver decides against coffee, bypassing his usual ritual.

Mr. Strayer, the believer, says the travelers are experiencing a stage of relaxation he calls “third-day syndrome.” Its symptoms may be unsurprising. But even the more skeptical of the scientists say something is happening to their brains that reinforces their scientific discussions — something that could be important to helping people cope in a world of constant electronic noise.

“If we can find out that people are walking around fatigued and not realizing their cognitive potential,” Mr. Braver says, then pauses and adds: “What can we do to get us back to our full potential?”

If you want to tackle a thorny problem, challenge a paradigm or bring to bear some serious intellectual horsepower, taking an hour or two out of your daily schedule isn’t going to do the job.

Taking an afternoon or even day off won’t have much impact either.  However there is plenty of evidence to suggest that multi-day events are very effective at increasing productivity.

(via Your Brain on Computers – Studying the Brain Off the Grid, Professors Find Clarity – NYTimes.com.)