Life On The Virtual Frontier

You’ve already had your foodie post for this week so I’m going to move on to something else today.  In fact, even if I had a great foodie post for you (which I don’t), the thing I want to write about is probably more important and hopefully more interesting in any event.

I’ve written before about the completely different way people are wired these days as a result of digital media.  Because of that, I doubt you have an extra hour and a half lying around, but if you do I would strongly urge you to watch the piece Frontline aired earlier this week.  It’s available online if you click here and it’s a great look a what’s happening to us all but especially to young people, as a result of how our lives have been altered by all the digital distractions around us.I was particularly interested by a writer from The Times who put forth some thinking we’ve discussed here about…well.. thinking:  focus, attention spans, etc.  It’s the idea that our minds move from place to place far too quickly, our tasks get only a few blips of attention each, and deep, quiet things, like reading a book, seem impossible.  While others in the piece say we’re just thinking about other things (blogs, not books, etc.), I’m not so sure.

When I was in college, you didn’t just start to type up your papers.  You probably wrote them out in longhand because you couldn’t easily change the writing once you typed it.  That’s right, kids:  no word processing available.  Typed as in “typewriter” and carbon paper and if you changed a word, you retyped the page.  Change a section and you might have to retype the entire paper.  So we thought very carefully before we committed our thinking to its final form.

I’m not being a Luddite here – I think it’s great for people like me whose handwriting stinks to have tools like Word available.  What concerns me is that the act of formulating ideas and really thinking them over has been compromised.

Another annoying thing.  When was the last time you sat in a meeting or on a call and people were allowed to finish a sentence without interruption?  It’s not just in business or even our own conversations.  Watch what passes for discussion shows on TV – there are often several people talking at each other at once.  I’d wager it has to do with the effects of IM’s and texting while also having a conversation with someone who is sitting next to you (they talk about this in the piece as well).  Maybe we’re all too conditioned for instant gratification.

This is a longer post than usual – hopefully you’ve made it this far.  Watch the piece and let me know what you think.  If your attention span will let you, that is.