DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY-PERILS AND CAUTIONS-
Are You
Multitasking or Are You Suffering from Digital-Device-Distraction Syndrome?
Bajarin is a
principal at Creative Strategies Inc., a
technology-industry-analysis and market-intelligence firm in Silicon Valley.
As technology invades our lives and covers every facet of
working, playing, learning and more, we as a culture will need to adjust and
find balance so as to not get so lost in the digital world that we lose
ourselves.
We hear frequently about parents desiring to get their kids to shut
off the video-game systems and go outside and play. Go out in public to
restaurants, coffee shops and malls, and you see people fixated on their
screens.
There is nothing wrong with that, however, I think we need
to be aware of something important as a digital society. I fear that we may
slowly lose the ability to be fully present in a moment or situation.
I noticed this about myself a few years ago while I was on
my computer checking e-mail and responding to “important” work stuff. As I was
sitting there fully immersed in my screen, one of my daughters was trying to
get my attention. I’m not sure how long it took, but I think she had to say,
“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” about four or five times. I recognized that it should
not take me that long to respond, and, more importantly, my eyes were open to
the reality that often I was not fully present in many important situations. We
are allowing digital distractions to interfere with important moments.
I grew up with technology and have little or no
recollection of life without a game system or personal computer. I am in my
mid-30s and the digital devices I grew up with are light-years different from
the ones my kids are growing up with, but the point remains that growing up
digital leads to some of the tendencies I am noticing. There’s a lack of
ability to be fully present.
This is clearly just becoming something that is socially
acceptable. In a meeting or conversation, it’s O.K. to turn our attention and
be as equally engaged with a smart phone as we are with the person across from
us. We are, after all, a multitasking generation.
Our attention is divided across multiple tasks and
multiple screens. I’m guessing that the prior generation may have considered
this too much to handle. We are becoming experts in multitasking, but I think
it’s time we learn again how to single-task in certain situations and contexts,
namely during engagements with human beings.
I’d love to see companies like Apple, Microsoft and
Google even try to help turn this trend around — perhaps by offering technology
like Apple’s 'Do Not Disturb' feature to automatically kick in when I am in
a meeting or when I get home.
There is a time and place for technology, but there is
also a time and place to be present in the real world. If we can’t recapture
the ability to be present, we may find that digital distractions cause life to
pass us by.
My blog date- Nov. 12, 2012
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