On potted plants................................

     This problem isn't unique to the aviators of Flight 447, of course.   It happens all the time, within offices and on freeways, as we're working on our smartphones and multitasking from the couch.  "This mess of a situation is one hundred percent our own fault," said Stephen Casner, a research psychologist at NASA who has studied dozens of accidents like Air France Flight 447.  "We started with a creative, flexible, problem-solving human and a mostly dumb computer that's good at rote, repetitive tasks like monitoring.  So we let the dumb computer fly and the novel-writing, scientific-theorizing, jet-flying humans sit in front of the computer like potted plants watching for blinking lights.  It's always been difficult to learn how to focus.  It's even harder now."

-Charles Duhigg,  Smarter Faster Better:  The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business