Just read Tara Hunt’s blog post regarding bite size data and broken attention spans.  As a multi-tasker who has a family member with ADHD, I felt compelled to wade in.

To be clear: I’m not a doctor.  I’m not a scientist.  I’m not a psychologist, though I work with people and what they think.  But let’s face it, doctors consistently change their views on even the most important things.  This isn’t bad; this is medical research progressing.  But with that in mind, let’s look at what’s going on without any of the current medical research gumming up the works.

Split Attenion

I spend most of my day doing at least 3 things.  I constantly have chat windows open (AIM, MSN, IRC, and Gmail chat), I receive regular email notifications, I’m busy in Office applications, I’m Twittering, I’m checking my SNS and blogging and working.  This is normal at Flock.  This is normal in most places.

If I had told my father when I was a kid that I’d be doing this, he would have laughed at me.  He grew up in a time when you did maybe two things at once.  These days, however, he’s forced to multitask.  He drives his container-carrying trailer to the job while talking to clients on the phone and getting pages from others.  He wouldn’t have chosen it, but even his two-task-trained mind has adjusted to handle this.

By comparison, I grew up multitasking.  TV and computer (a habit I’ve tried to break and mostly succeeded) were my evenings.  While I absorbed theatrical elements and plot development from the tube (the original tube), I spoke with friends online, played games, found random stuff online, and/or worked on my own little projects.  I felt bad about this at the time; kids weren’t supposed to do this.  We were supposed to concentrate on our homework.

Cons

To be fair, I didn’t come out of this as a multi-million dollar champ who laughed in the face of parents and old teachers.  In fact, my grades were less than good and my college options were limited.  When I took my first difficult college class (Astronomy) I nearly failed because I simply couldn’t absorb that much straight data.

Like Tara, I learned to focus my energy.  In a way, it’s a sort of balance.  I now enjoy the concentration taken to focus on a single piece of writing (reading or creating) because I know I’m really getting something out of it.  Once I finish, I relish the dive back into multiple streams of data and creation.

Is this for everyone?  No.  Figuring out how to concentrate my multi-tasking brain wasn’t fun, and if I had screwed up badly enough I would have regretted it.

Where is this all going?

So what is the answer?  Are we all crippling ourselves?  Tara disagrees.  “It sounds a little like evolution to me.”  YES!  I think one of the most-overlooked elements of evolution is the evolution of thought processes.  It is a much faster evolution than that of our bodies.  Frankly, I think this has been labeled Anthropology and Psychology and left alone by scientists of evolution.  But it’s fascinating to think of all the unresearched gaps here.  Why is it that I (with my inferior single concentration) can figure out a technical device that I have no experience with, while my father (with superior concentration) can’t?  I refuse to attribute this all to “experience with technology”.  My dad has plenty of technology and has had it for awhile.  It’s our BRAINS that are different.

So, is this good?  I think the truth is that no one knows.  Is all evolution good?  No.  Evolution is a reaction to environmental circumstances.  It does not take into consideration how things might change in the future.  It doesn’t take into account that this change might be temporary.  If all computers died today, we might be crippled.  We might die off, leaving only the John Locke’s.

What do I think the result of this will be?  I think increased creativity is the most fantastic element of this.  Previously, one had to dedicate specfic time to creation.  Only those with lots of time or the ability to concentrate and create in short periods really revolutionized things.

Now, we all have the time (due to multi-tasking) to imagine and create.  “User-generated content” is a big buzzword right now, but nobody seems to be thinking about it on a deeper level.  Is the internet or technology the real reason for more user-generated content?  No, the real reason is these people have the ability to create and imagine in the space between moments.

This isn’t all good.  In fact, I attribute it to the creation of many crappy, crappy bands.  They have time to work and work on songs until they’re just enough above craptastic to be slightly marketable.  But I think that, by far, the result has been positive.  From the fantastic collections of data on the internet to the myriad of blogger opinions to the startup businesses created in spare time or an afternoon…we’re truly experiencing a renaissance, and it’s because of this ability to split our concentration.

The end to this enormous diatribe is rather simple: don’t fight this.  We’ve stifled evolution as much as we can with chemicals, confines, prosthetics and the like.  Let’s not kill the one, amazing evolution occurring in our brains right now.

As Tara said: “Information overload is painful, yes, but it is necessary, I believe, for our personal advancement.”  Amen.  And now I’m off to Twitter, Gmail, and Flock.  Hm, maybe a little IM too.

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Tags: TaraHunt, evolution, creativity, ADD, ADHD, multi-tasking, Twitter, IM