Two computer screens aren't better than one

So, cynical about science reporting, I was expecting the results of a study either misinterpreted or extended far beyond their reach. This article doesn't even have that! It's basically the preferences of the author coupled with some tenuous connection to research about focus.

It's especially in applicable to programmers: I want two monitors so that I can simultaneously display a full screen of code as well as shells, tooling, documentation and whatever I'm working on. Especially for web development, I need two screens just to fit everything I'm actively using. Web tools and documentation aren't distractions.

Sure, if you have enough left-over screen space to put up a bunch of distractions, perhaps you don't need two monitors. Or perhaps you're not using them properly! One of the main reasons I have a clear separation between work and distractions is that I use a tiling window manager: I can't have something distracting in the background. Sticking to that might be a good start. (Although it's difficult on Windows with its slightly ironic paucity of window managements tools like multiple desktops.)

So yeah: two screens are better than one. Especially for programmers. But really, for everyone—everyone who uses them in a reasonable way. If only tiling window managers were more popular!

TL;DR: when you want to focus, don't keep your email and social media clients open on your second screen.

First of all, this article includes only anecdotal evidence. Secondly, it fails to provide an adequate definition of the problem. You can easily find a single big, high-res panel that has more screen real-estate than a pair of 1080p panels, but would one of these be better for your focus because it's a single display? This claim is not logical. If you can augment your working memory with more screen real estate you should benefit. If you use screen real-estate to display extraneous, distracting data such as weather, email, news, etc. you might suffer. Whether or not your screen real-estate has a line down the middle dividing it into two chunks shouldn't make a difference.

I've been developing from a single screen for 17 years and have never desired a second. Part of the reason is I work from a laptop and rarely at a desk. But practically speaking I get a lot of work done on a single screen. My eyes can only focus on a single window at a time, so I have no problem using swipe gestures to quickly jump between tasks. Another advantage is I don't need to twist my head every which way to view different windows. The window I need meets my eyes rather than the other way around. While the article is mainly an opinion and offers little scientific research I do agree with his opinion.

Discussion on the original New York Times article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7432908

Testing web application changes on one screen... tailing the logs on the other. Monitoring on one screen, remote terminals on the other... IDE on one screen... 3 different browsers on the other. Really makes a big difference when working as devops to have two screens. Is significantly faster for me and easier than using one.