As I sit here writing this, I have a Visio drawing up where I'm recreating a process flow that I'm using to draw up specs for a web application I'm going to be building, I'm checking e-mail, I have a number of pieces of paper on my desk in front of me where I'm doodling out ideas on how to solve a dozen different problems I'll have to overcome when I start building the application, I'm chatting over NetMeeting with a coworker on the other side of our work area... oh, and I'm browsing through JoeUser. Yeah, all at the same time.
I'm one of those guys who has essentially grown up around computers. Since I first laid eyes on my dad's Macintosh Plus (one of the lunchbox Mac models) when I was 5 years old (1987), I was hooked. I spent hours crashing that thing, trying to take it apart bit by bit to figure out how it worked. Then, a few years later, I got to experience The Internet for the first time... but before there was a World Wide Web. I used to spend entire weekends in my dad's office surfing Gopher. I read articles and papers on topics that I had absolutely no interest in just because I could. It astounded me that I could read papers stored on computers on the other side of the country in the blink of an eye. As time went on, the computers we had at home became more sophisticated, the Internet really took off, and I was right there in the middle of it, living through every advance. I had an e-mail account before most of the adults I knew. I had a web page before such a thing as WYSIWYG editing existed. I was doing Internet Relay Chat while people were just coming to grips with AOL chat rooms. I was on the bleeding edge, and I loved it.
It was a common thing to see me at the computer in High School with 7 AIM conversations running, several email exchanges going on, a few web browsers open to forums, talking on the phone with a friend while holding a conversation with someone in the room standing next to me. There was multitasking... then there was what I was doing. I was keeping track of dozens of different things at once with ease. Most people who would watch me do this couldn't even keep up with what program I was currently typing in as I clicked around the desktop at the speed of thought.
Fast forward a few years to my Junior Year of college. What I had been doing wasn't so rare anymore, everyone had a dozen email addresses, anyone could make a web page, AIM was a staple of life (whenever AIM would crash for whatever reason, you'd see students wandering campus and building hallways with a lost look on their faces). Now, it was also at this time that my course work got serious, and my part-time job as IT Guru for the Biochem Dept got pretty involved and required a lot more attention. I suddenly found that when I had to concentrate on one item for a long period of time (i.e. a major project) I would be distracted within 30min. I thought maybe it was because I was bored with the task at hand... but it happened when I was doing IT work, something I enjoy a great deal. My attention span was completely shot. I had grown up juggling a dozen things in my mind at once, so when I had to just go at one at a time, I couldn't do it.
I pretty much exhibit all the signs of adult attention deficit disorder... I can't concentrate on any one thing for very long unless its something that is in some way continually changing. I can sit for hours and read books... I can play a video game all day... because both of those experiences are continually changing (story, dialogue, activities etc...). Ask me to work on the requirements document for a legal compliance project and I’ll start to zone out, start thinking of a dozen different things I need to do or wish I was doing.
This, I think, is the greatest danger associated with growing up immersed in technology. The world never sits still long enough to concentrate. Even the nature of work now is much different with people constantly shifting from meeting to meeting, tasked to work on half a dozen projects at once, juggling the flood of emails for each project and then having to go home and manage a personal life and finances. Technology has sped everything up, and now most people are simply unable to slow down.
Ooooh… look… shiny… *wanders off*