So I'm sitting here, trying to write an assignment, make a blog post, sing along to the concourse radio tunes, and eat wedges. So far it's going okay I guess, but AH wait, forgot a drink! Green tea Gingerale or OJ..both acidic-y. Hmm, 2:04, that's like, 2 hours to class time. Zero hour let's go type type type...why is my mom calling? Crap , I need to get off Facebook. Okay, next paragraph...whoa that dude looks like Ryan Sheckler, there's no way he's or legal university age-
Good god. If my head doesn't explode in the next 40 seconds I'll consider it luck. Why can't I just focus on a single task? Years ago I don't even think it would have been possible for people my age to be doing and paying attention to so many things at once. My dad is fond of saying that back in the day, cell phones had a cord (ha. ha.) and people were rarely expected to walk and chew simultaneously.
I blame it entirely on the internet. Don't get me wrong, I love being connected, but it has come to a point where you can talk, surf the net, play music and simulate light saber noises with a single device. The internet as well as general technological advances have made it possible to easily do about fifteen and a half things at once. And know what I think this is doing to our generation? Giving each and every one of us a healthy dose of Attention Defecit Disorder.
To be able to do a million things on one device is referred to positively by technological industries as 'convergence'. In theory, having access to a multitude of functions from a single place is quite useful and convenient. It's not the idea of this convenience that I'm worried about. It is the tendencies and habits that are born of this convenience. It's the level of multi-tasking that we become accustomed to and thus employ in areas where it's maybe NOT so convenient to be multi-tasking. Such as when we are trying to do homework. Or literally ANYTHING on a computer.
Take good hard look at your computer habits. When you're sitting there trying to get to business, how many different mediums are you using in a given hour? Take me for example: I've been known to try and do assignments while: watching TV, downloading music, partaking in a living-room laptop party, eating, talking on the phone, Facebooking (don't judge), listening to the music I just downloaded, googling longboards, avoding my roommates' flatulence, doing my hair, doing ANOTHER assignment...These activites occur all at once, or in stages, give or take a few...It's never just the single task at hand, and I bet you have the same problem.
With the emergence of the Internet and multi-use devices, we have become accustomed to being able to accomplish any number of things at once, and because of this were are losing the ability to stay focussed on a single task. For me personally, it has become so bad that when I do manage to isolate my focus on a single task, I begin to stray and figet until I have incorporated some other action into what I'm doing. Is this normal?
Reversing the effects of this generational A.D.D explosion looks nearly impossible. We would have to ignore technological advances and stick to outdated methods of communication and computing, which is inconceivable as it would mean becoming less in touch with the rest of the population. It would mean being a step behind everyone else, a little bit slower. Who wants to be hanging onto the bumper of the bandwagon?
If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go ahead and buy Ritalin shares.
I totally agree with what your saying, and didn't really realize how bad it was! It is almost in our nature to be multi-taskers, we`re born into it. We are even adding it to our 'skills profile' on a resume; and just looking around our class the other night 90% of us had a laptop out. For me I find when using firefox, I constantly have at like 4 or 5 tabs open at a given time. It allows me to have a million things open at once and to switch between them so easily. Even with links on pretty much every site you go on, it is easily to get distracted. Today in the fishbowl, trying to start a paper I began searching a band – which went from checking them out on youtube, to their myspace page, to their official website, to check out their tour, to ticketmaster to look for tickets; all while texting and MSNing friends to distract them also. One simple task can just get multiplied, and you don`t even know it!
ReplyDeleteAlso not only in school do we do a million things at once trying to work on assignments, but even things such as the Iphone or Blackberries in the working world allow you to stay connected all the time, through a lot of different forms – talking, texting, emailing, Iming, and internet sites like Facebook and Twitter. But again, I see your point how this is how we have become, and do not use these technologies or to take a step back, would only make us out of the loop.