Multitasking

Humans really don't do many things at once well, because that's not how most human brains are structured to work. When we multitask, we split our time across all the different things we're trying to do. And there are two problems with that. One problem is that there's a cost to switching back and forth between the things you're trying to do, and the other is if you're participating in some kind of event that's unfolding in time, you're going to miss things when you switch your attention away from that event. If you're checking your e-mail at the same time you are trying to converse with a person standing in front of you, you're not really doing both things at same time (multitasking), you're doing a little bit of e-mail and a little bit of talking and very little thinking. Much of the real time conversation you having consists of looking at the the e-mail or doing some other multi task you've just missed.

So why is multitasking seen as a good thing, and why is it seen by so many to be higher level of functioning? I have opinions about this (I have opinions on everything) as to why people seem to want to multitask. One reason may be social pressure to conform to the technological mania in the world today. It's the three blind mice predicament. Technology has been defined by society to be superior to non technology, a definition that unfortunately does not include the role of how we use the technology when defining it. The fact is that much of our personal use technology is primitive, misguided..uh disgustingly rude and anti intellectual. Still, social pressure tells us we must be robots. We must be multitaskers or we will be viewed as odd. We must be like the three blind mice who simply do as others do without thought about the usefulness of doing so.

A second reason people multitask with their technology is that technology is addictive. Addicts don't realize or admit they are addicted, technology addicts included. Society is past the point of realizing that a person should first see a "need " for technology or a reason to use or own it. Instead, we use it robotically, and this makes us think less deeply. Thinking less deeply when multitasking affects our intellect's use and growth by deadening it. How can one give deep thought to a concept when engaged in the many small thoughts required by multitasking with technology? Yet we multitask confidently, contending that we are alert on all fronts as we do it. But, for example, we would be repulsed if the physician operating on our heart were to send and read E mails and listen to an ipod while doing the surgery. With each task engaged in at the same time as others our proficiency level falls as we are distracted by them all.

Another reason we blindly, happily, multitask our way through the day is the notion that in doing so we are trendy and out front. He or she who has not the latest electronic gadget is seen as "out of touch" with the modern world. And the non multitasker is indeed out of touch. But for multitaskers this concept of being in touch is with the electronic world, not the human one. In fact, those with an electronic orientation are the ones who most often divorce themselves from reality (by changing real world into electronic communication).

So now you can denounce me as being a fossil, one who fights technological "improvement". Or perhaps you were multitasking when reading this and, as a result, haven't got a clue as to what I wrote.