Observation: Today at work, while chatting online, listening to music, creating deposit spreadsheets, answering phones, and attending to emergency infobox emails that said "WHERE IS MY LOGIN PASSWORD?!", I became suddenly conscious of that fact that I was multitasking. How did I develop this skill? I am challenged by the combination of walking and chewing gum (cliche, I know), so I pondered this unlikely development (which became yet another task I performed at work). And then it hit me- each of the friends I was chatting with were at work, too. They were all holding at least 3 unrelated conversations while performing mundane work tasks and wondering what they were going to have for lunch. Everyone was multitasking. We all had this in common.
Hypothesis: If we all have this in common, then it is generational.
Experimental Thought: The present generation has been greatly impacted by technology, i.e. computers and the internet. Such technology has been at the heart of blame for my generation's awful laziness, need for instant gratification, and problem with obesity (all intertwined). I have heard that we are the first generation that will have an average lifespan shorter than our paternal generation (which I am hesitant to believe because we aren't old enough to really know yet). All of our resources can be found at our fingertips- literally. My Blackberry is practically a pocket sized laptop computer and fits in the palm of my hand.
Conclusion: We rarely need patience to access information or put our full attention into any single task. Thus, we can pay attention to lots of things at once. Thus we have all developed multitasking skills.
Taking it a step further... I am wondering, is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Knowledge: I am far too lazy to fully explore this question. I guess I am a victim of my generation.
I know I will need to work from home this evening to make up for the work I failed to accomplish at work, because of the million other things I was doing. Perhaps we are just easily distracted. And I wonder if anyone else is in this same boat. I'm sure they will be online later, and we can talk about it while watching the Olympics, having dinner, checking facebook, and, oh, finishing up our work.
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Haha this is great. I think this is a good thing and a bad thing. A good thing because the jobs (office jobs mostly) many of us will hold require this ability to multitask, so it's a very good skill to have. A bad thing because we get sidetracked with Facebook, watching TV, and a million other things, not to mention when we really need to focus on one thing, we can't.
ReplyDeleteI find I'm much better at focusing on thing if I have music in the background, but not music that has lyrics that I know. I need music unfarmiliar enough to keep my need for something else and something new occupied, giving my concious mind some peace and quiet from the rest of my brain to concentrate, if that makes sense. It's the only way to get in the zone