If you think the Blog world moves fast, I did not even get a chance last week to Blog about Time Magazine (Canadian Edition) for March 27, 2006. I just went over to the Time Magazine website to grab a URL link and the new issue is already up. Thankfully, Time Magazine archives the articles and they can all be read online.
Last week’s edition of Time Magazine featured a cover story called, Are Kids Too Wired For Their Own Good? What science tells us about the pluses – and minuses – of doing everything at once.
I really loved this article and the whole notion of Generation M. While the article looks at more social and psychological issues related to how young people now interact with technology, as a marketer, I saw a lot of myself in there (I’m trying to stay young).
Television is wallpaper as I surf on my wireless laptop, thumb-text through my Blackberry, instant message people, download audio to my iPod and speak on the phone.
I’m comfortable doing a million things at once. I’ve said at speaking engagements that I’ve gone from multitasking to psychotasking.
Time Magazine argues that:
“As for multitasking devices, social scientists and educators are just beginning to assess their impact, but the researchers already have some strong opinions. The mental habit of dividing one’s attention into many small slices has significant implications for the way young people learn, reason, socialize, do creative work and understand the world… ‘Kids that are instant messaging while doing homework, playing games online and watching TV, I predict, aren’t going to do well in the long run,’ says Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neuroscience section at the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.”
We’re going to be faced with many interesting challenges as technology becomes more mobile and we spend more time online creating and interacting. Time Magazine argues that our bodies are just not made for this.
On the other hand, this same issue of Time Magazine has a great editorial by Steven Johnson called Don’t Fear The Digital – It’s dumbing down our kids? Hardly. Why plugging in is good for you.
Johnson is the author of Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter.
You can read the article here: Are Kids Too Wired For Their Own Good? – Time Magazine.