Attached to Technology and Paying a Price

“Attached to Technology and Paying a Price” is about the relationship of multi-tasking people and the technology around them. It often uses the Campbell family as an example of the many Americans who constantly check on their e-mail and social networking sites. However more than the family it focuses on, the important message is in the issues it presents. Many people believe that the ability to multi-task technology provides us with makes us more productive, but the reality is that, while we can monitor multiple streams of information at a time, our ability to focus on those streams diminishes. We miss important information and easily get distracted from what we are supposed to be doing. I am not one of these multi-taskers. I get distracted easily enough without adding multiple media sources to the mix. However, because I find holding my attention to any one thing at a time difficult, I can relate to the people who believe they have to constantly divide their attention between their facebook, phone, and whatever else they may be doing at the time, at least in certain respects. People who find they are constantly switching between what they’re doing actually waste time while they refocus from task to task. They have to reanalyze to figure out where they left off and what they were going to do next. Also, switching between tasks constantly means that you are not giving your full and undivided attention to anything. You may be looking at one screen; it may be the only thing you have up on your computer screen, but multi-tasking tendencies are habits and persist from your work to your personal life and vice-versa. The mind wanders and strays looking for something else to do. You may think that you are giving your full and undivided attention to the project at hand, but really, your mind is always looking for the next thing and you may not even realize it. Both “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price” focus on the diminishing attention spans of the people who frequently use technology and, to an extent, the effects it has on their social lives. Both articles notice that more Americans are constantly spending their free time online, whether it is for research or to check e-mail. They both mention from studies that a lot of people find websites, but don’t read the entire thing through and that people are constantly looking for something else to occupy their attention when they are trying to concentrate on a single task put in front of them. The articles also both blame the increase in daily internet use as the source for the mass attention deficit. The differences are in the effects the two articles see happening. “Attached to Technology and Paying a Price” sees a disconnection away from the family and what is happening away from the computer screen. When they are disconnected from the internet, they are constantly looking for the next chance to get online. “Is Google Making Us Stupid” sees a massive reprogramming of the brain. The massive amount of information is reworking the way we think to better handle the larger loads at once.