
Discovering Two Screens Aren’t Better Than One - noblethrasher
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/technology/personaltech/surviving-and-thriving-in-a-one-monitor-world.html?_r=0
======
cthalupa
Meh.

What this article really means is "If you get distracted by things, keeping
distractions up on more screens will make you more distracted."

I have my laptop screen and 3 extra monitors:

1) Email. I keep my main inbox very filtered - email that shows up there is
important and I need to see it and read it asap

2) IRC/OCS. Work communication primarily happens through these, and much of it
is important.

3) Browser open to our internal workflow tools / tabs for research

4) Laptop screen, closest to me out of all of these, where I have terminals
open, etc.

I originally only had one extra display outside of the monitor, but my
productivity /very/ measurably went up when I added more displays. No more
hunting to find the window I wanted. Easy to reference things when talking to
people. Easy to reference things when working on a server. etc etc etc.

So, like just about every tool out there, the usefulness is determined by the
use case that prompted it, and how effectively you use it.

~~~
enobrev
How are you using the three external monitors from a laptop? The reason I
stick with a desktop is because I very heavily rely upon three monitors and
haven't found any decent solutions to do so with a laptop. I'm using ubuntu,
so I understand if the OS is a limitation, but I'd still love to hear about
what you're using to make it work.

~~~
honopu
I'm not who you asked, but I have:

2012 Retina macbook pro 15"

27" display port dell 24" display port dell 27" Samsung on hdmi to dvi cable.

It will run all 4 screens at once.

~~~
enobrev
Interesting. I have a 2013 MBP from work and my monitors have HDMI and I seem
to recall HDMI / DP converters. I'll need to check if the display ports work
well with ubuntu. Thanks!

(two 27s and a 24! Fantastic!)

------
coreymgilmore
Since this is HN and most people here have written code, I compare multi-
monitor setups to a text/code editor with a single panel/pane. You just don't
do it! Sublime, N++, Atom, etc. all support multiple panes (split screen).
Once you get coding enough you never go back to using a single pane.

Same thing with multi-monitor. As long as you are productive (unlike the
author), more screen real estate is better (obviously, there are limits)

Personally, I like dual 27"s. Allows you to run 4 full size (think 8.5"x11")
word docs at 100% side by side. Very nice!

~~~
patcheudor
What the author failed to account for is the fact that not everyone does the
same type of work. As a security researcher I spend a fair amount of time
watching real-time code execution while simultaneously watching & modifying
network traffic. In a typical solution review I might have Wireshark running
on one monitor, an HTTP editor/proxy running on another hooked to the browser,
another HTTP editor/proxy running on yet another monitor hooked to the web
service. That's three monitors right there. Next I'll have the browser running
on a fourth monitor and possibly be reviewing code and code execution on a
fifth. On the sixth and seventh monitors I'll be doing research including
static code analysis with the eighth and ninth monitors dedicated to coms
(chat/email) and writing up my results. I routinely switch between my multi-
monitor solution and a single screen laptop and there's just simply no way I
can effectively do my job on one monitor these days. I'll do "simple" reviews
on my one monitor laptop and stick with the multi-monitor solution for the
harder stuff.

[http://defaultstore.com/mydesk.jpg](http://defaultstore.com/mydesk.jpg)

------
ericclemmons
I've gone back to a single screen. It turns out, using tools like
SizeUp/Spectactle/etc. were all I needed to balance the two tasks I spend 90%
of my time multitasking between - coding and the output.

When I had a second monitor on, it had my IMs, emails, Twitter, etc. and
became a source of distraction more than anything.

Anecdotally, I've worked in bullpen offices where everyone has a second screen
and consistently see Facebook, YouTube, or Netflix being actively used while
coding. Not as passive background noise, but constant code, fb, code, skip
commercial, etc.

It makes sense to me that by having more screens, either on our desks, in our
hands, or on our walls, we're doing less while pretending to do more.

~~~
WalterSear
Protip: put productive things on >both< monitors.

~~~
coldtea
And now you're split between two productive things. More reason to
procrastrinate.

Better just have the productive thing you should be focused on one at a time
up on a sigle monitor.

~~~
WalterSear
Uhm, if it's distracting you from that task at hand, instead of helping you
complete it, it's not a productive thing.

My code editor lives on one screen, usually with four files in veiw. My
browser and console live on the other. It's really no different that one
screen.

~~~
enobrev
Exactly right, communication tools should have no real estate if you're trying
to focus. I keep three screens: one with multiple terminals, one with my code
editor(s), and one for displaying whatever I'm coding (android emulator,
browser, etc) as well as docs, research, etc.

If I'm coding, all comms are off to avoid any distraction - specifically to
avoid notifications. I'm I'm in support mode (flapping server, etc), comms are
up, but they get a tiny slice of real estate next to my terminal with logs and
such so we can triage and move on.

------
danielnaab
This should be titled, "two big screens aren't better that one big screen."
I've had multiple desktops with two 21" CRTs, back when that made you a fancy
boy, and had considerable improvement in workflow from it. Now, with my 27"
Thunderbolt monitor, I can't imagine the frustration of having to turn my head
instead of move my eye to change my mind's focus.

This transition was after having done most of my development on a 15" laptop,
and re-learning how to be productive without distractions... everyone's
mileage will of course vary, so blanket statements are worthless.

~~~
enobrev
I transitioned from three 19" monitors to two beautiful 27" monitors for about
a year. I hated it. Nonetheless, I gave it a worthy shot and allowed myself to
get used to it. Turns out, I'm most productive when I have at least three
separate contexts, in which a single window (or a couple representative
windows) can hold the full screen, without needing to worry about rearranging
things.

Unfortunately, moving to a single screen of any size is debilitating by a
large margin for me these days.

------
bbarn
I may be alone, but I'll generally take 2 19" non-widescreen monitors over a
single giant monitor any day of the week. There's something (possibly as a
minority windows user) that I really like about throwing things from screen to
screen. Especially when I have to do the rare front-end tweaks. Some people
may be able to spit out perfect CSS without seeing the site they're working
on, but I'm 95% a back end dev, so when I have to do the odd styling related
task, it's a lot of try this, refresh, try this.. something that works about
three times as fast when I have two monitors.

At work, I have three. 2 high quality widescreens, one center, one to the
right, and a tiny (by my request) 17" standard ratio screen to the left that
email sits on all day long. It moves so rarely that it catches my eye when it
does, but again.. it was such a low cost investment that it's almost
negligible. When I come home I have one large screen, and an old 17" standard
screen to the left. The left screen is almost always playing a TV show or
movie, and the center screen is everything from life, to work, to just wasting
time.

If I had a single point with all of this, it's that windows don't mean the
same to me as screens do. Even with the new win8/metro style interfaces
ability to segment screens, I really like the "this one does this, this one
does that" effect I get from two monitors.

~~~
weissometer
I'm a mechanical engineer, but I largely feel the same way. I have one higher
quality screen in front of me dedicated to Solidworks and a second screen
dedicated to everything else; usually a task list/ McMaster-Carr/ Excel and
Soundcloud or whatever music and task manager (need to know if Chrome +
solidworks are eating ALL of the RAM).

------
coldtea
I think 2 (or more) screen displays make sense for professionals who need the
extra screen constantly up -- e.g music producers seeing both their DAW audio
lanes and individual sequencer piano rolls, or video editors watching the
video tracks, color controls etc on one monitor and a full screen of the movie
in the other.

For programmers not so much (even something like console output/build results
you better decide when to focus on it, rather than constantly having it as a
distraction).

~~~
X-Istence
For me it is the ability to have my code up on one screen, and a debugger on
the other. So that I can look at my debugger, and look at my code at the same
time.

Or instead of a debugger, have a web browser with my current site, the web
inspector, and my CSS so I can make modifications easily.

Programming with multiple monitors makes me a faster programmer as I am
spending less time switching between applications.

------
msandford
A news junkie finds out that distracting himself makes him less productive.
From this we can conclude that ALL people who have two screens should forget
the second one. Right.

~~~
coldtea
Or, with a more charitable and less snarky reading, let's condlude that it's
possible that "2 screens can be worse than one".

Or maybe that most people are "news junkies" that can benefit from less
distractions, whether they believe it applies to them or not.

~~~
msandford
While I agree that my comment was snarky, the author didn't couch the
statements at all.

"Discovering Two Screens Aren't Better Than One"

That makes it sound an awful lot like a fact or a universal law, not someone's
personal opinion. When it's clearly one person's opinion.

Just about everyone who needs to "multi-task" by reading documentation and
applying that knowledge can and likely will benefit from multiple screens. I
wish I had three, really.

That's a huge part of the economy; software, CAD/CAM, basically anything
engineering-ish at all.

To suppose that the way that you use a computer is the same as the way
everyone uses a computer is rather arrogant, don't you think?

------
kuon
I have my main monitor with my vim editor, one monitor with the terminal
(tests, logs, console, debugger...), those two are single windows split in
multiple pieces.

On the third monitor I have the actual app running (be iOS simulator, browser
window or normal native app, virtual machine, whatever)

And I have a fourth monitor with team chat, documentation, sourcetree and
"general browsing".

When I work I just keep my email and other IM closed. Those are distracting in
single or multiple monitor mode anyway.

I have two horizontally stacked 27' monitor at the center and 1 vertical 27'
monitor on each side. This provides a quite compact work area, at least I can
see the whole estate without moving my head too much.

I am now traveling and on a single screen, and I am more distracted that ever,
because I cannot keep my work "open" all the time and as soon as I switch to
another window, it's full screen and covers everything.

------
ChuckMcM
So he should really go old school and work on a 24 x 80 ASCII terminal :-)
There are _no_ distractions :-)

~~~
Aloha
You can use screen though :-P

------
sneakest
I use two monitors to code, debug, shell, test, etc... with when I am working
and nothing else is open on that machine other than work or research related
to what I am doing. Not even email is open. All of my distractions (email
included) are on my laptop with it's own extra screen. The key (for me anyway)
is setting your screen saver to come on or go blank after a short period of
inactivity mine is 5 minutes. This visually blocks anything from grabbing my
attention on this machine. Now all the flashy alerts and popups are hidden
from view.

This article should have been titled something else as the multiple monitors
aren't the issue. If you are being distracted with multiple monitors from the
work you are supposed to be doing then you need to close those distracting
items or block them visually.

------
FiatLuxDave
While everyone seems to be focusing on the issues of distractions, I have
found myself in the habit of using one screen due to a particular testing
issue. All of the devs in my group were using two screens, and so were the
testers, but the majority of our customers used one screen. Customers would
run into issues which the devs wouldn't be able to reproduce. It turned out
that the issue was pop-ups ('foo is bar; click ok to continue') which would
appear normally if you were running the app in your right-hand screen, but
which would appear off-screen to a single-screen user. Being the only single-
screen user in the development group enabled me to solve the bug and prevent
many future cases of the same bug getting through into production.

------
freshyill
My setup for front-end development:

* 15" Retina MPB at 1920x1200 (iTerm 2 with either 3 or 4 panes)

* 27" Thunderbolt (two documents side-by-side, currently tolerating Atom)

* 27" iMac in target display mode (browser and dev tools).

And that's just the three spaces that I do most of my work in. I've got other
spaces set up for general browsing, email, image editing, chat, etc.

It's probably excessive for most people. But I need to see all of these
things. If I can't have them all up at once, I have to do a lot of switching
between windows and spaces, and that takes a time. It's small amounts, but it
adds up. I rely on tools like Gulp and BrowserSync to help me save small
amounts of time. Staying focused by keeping my work in front of me really does
help to keep me focused.

------
MichaelGG
For just writing code, like real algorithmic stuff, I've never been more
productive than on my 12" ThinkPad X201. Multi mon is great for many things,
but in-the-flow _coding_ doesn't seem to benefit. Unfortunately, Lenovo
trashed the ThinkPad line, and I actually hate every minute I'm using my
T440p. I'd pay $3000 to get an X201 with updated hardware. Nothing else I've
seen comes close to the old X series. It had a full sized real ThinkPad
keyboard, no compromises!

~~~
aftbit
I like my X220 off of ebay. It's a 12" machine, but it's fast enough for me
and pretty cheap. The screen isn't great, though...

~~~
MichaelGG
I held off on the subsequent X series because of the dumb 16:9 screens _at low
resolution_! Less than 800 vertical pixels just doesn't work. Also, after the
X201_ they started breaking the keyboard, killing the full-sized legendary
boards.

The X240 finally improved the screen a bit, but has totally ruined the pointer
input and keyboard. Plus apparently it has a lot of problems, and they
crippled the RAM (8GB max, in 2014).

I wish some hardware hacker would find a way to mod these things. I'd pay
$400, plus costs, to mod modern ThinkPads to use the old kb and pointer setup.
I've lost at least that much in decreased work, frustration (I have a under
20% success trying to right click on the abominable clickpad, and worse for
middle click) and literal physical pain.

------
Methusalah
If your primary use for a second display is email, then sure I guess it could
just be a distraction. But when you're working with several applications at
once to accomplish a single task, multiple monitors are a necessity. If you
have ever spend any time at all doing data entry, it's immediately obvious how
much more efficient it is.

------
microcolonel
I think this is just another case of a tool blaming his tools.

He is obviously distracted by default, and incapable of going without Facebook
on IV and Twitter through a nasal tube.

With great firepower, comes great opportunity to shoot one's self in the foot.
He doesn't realize that this doesn't mean it's counterproductive, but rather
that he is.

------
Shorel
Ubuntu virtual desktops are enough for me, and I use them all the time.

When I have to use Windows, I end up installing VirtuaWin just because of the
muscle memory related to my workflow.

------
dba7dba
I agree with the author. Working with 2 (or even 3) small, low quality
monitors is worse than working with 1 decent monitor.

------
gress
I agree that two are worse than one, but only if that one is big enough - 27"
or above.

------
sniddy
truly laughable,

also when your primary screen is a 27 inch 1080p wide panel display as he
seems to have in the picture, you probably aren't feeling as constrained as
most people with their 4 year old low res 15 inch laptops.

~~~
coldtea
> _truly laughable_

I, and lots of others, find it quite reasonable. Any counter-arguments besides
the quick dismissal?

> _also when your primary screen is a 27 inch 1080p wide panel display as he
> seems to have in the picture, you probably aren 't feeling as constrained as
> most people with their 4 year old low res 15 inch laptops_

Well, I work on a 15 inch laptop and don't feel constrained. And lots of
people work on 13" Macbook Airs and the like and feel quite focused and OK.
It's not like it only applies to people with 27" monitors.

~~~
recursive
I have a counter-argument that seems about as strong as the author's.

Sometimes I use one monitor and sometimes I use two. I perceive less friction
when using two.

------
mgback
IMO... We should start banning the times with their new paywall.

------
AdrianRossouw
the only reason i have a second screen is because i have a laptop plugged into
an external monitor.

I hardly use my retina display for anything. i miss my 17" mbp displays.

------
epe
Seems like classic Hawthorne effect...

------
Dewie
> But if you wouldn’t watch a movie or play a video game while you’re trying
> to get something done, why would you keep an app as distracting as email
> sitting within your field of view?

Because... I wouldn't? I use a window manager and I don't have a system tray
(so no email notifications, for example). Often, I have one application open
on each screen, perhaps a PDF reader, a text editor or a browser. Then, if I
need to actually look at two things fairly back and forth, I'll split that
screen into two, or use both monitors. What if I don't need the second
monitor? I guess it could just be looking at the wallpaper, or displaying an
analogue clock (that is: if I'm not looking too much at the clock, pining for
the time to pass quicker!).

Does using two monitors make me more productive? I don't know yet. But I don't
see how two monitors would make me more susceptible to procrastination. If I
feel the need to fire up the browser and go to reddit or something, that's
pretty much as with one monitor as with two. The time and effort I save by not
having to minimize the currently focused app in order to open the browser,
compared to just opening a browser on the already blank second monitor, seems
so small as to be inconsequential to a bored, wandering mind.

