I’ve never bought into the “technology makes you stupid” canard, because… it’s really stupid. In short, it goes like this: You have too many things to keep track of (for instance, I’m currently rocking Daft Punk’s Alive 2007 on my iPod, and have my cell phone on my desk, seven tabs open in Firefox, and two Gchats going), and so you can’t just focus on one task. Since multitasking is inefficient, you cause “stress and frustration and lowered creativity … when you’re scattered and diffuse.” That’s Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age, in a Wired interview.

That’s true, as far as it goes. If you’re continually bouncing from one task to another, you obviously can’t focus your attention on one thing for a long period of time. But creativity depends on building on things around you, and the more disparate the sources, the more the end result seems like an act of creation.

Additionally, as MindHacks points out, Jackson’s central thesis (“before digital communication technology came along, people spent their time focusing on single tasks for hours on end and were rarely distracted”) doesn’t make sense, and that low-tech neighborhoods illustrate the point well:

In some of the poorer neighbourhoods [in] Medellín, my current city of residence, there is no electricity. In these barrios, computers, the internet, and even washing machines and telephones don’t exist in the average home.
[...]
People call all the time, because, well, there is no other way of communication. Street vendors pass by the house and shout what they’re selling*. If you miss out on something, it might mean your days food planning has gone down the drain.
[...]
The difference between this, and the “oh isn’t email stressful” situation, is that you can take a break from email and phone calls. You can switch everything off for an hour so you can concentrate. You can tell people you won’t be available.

For people trying to work and run a family at the same time, not only are the consequences of missing something more important and potentially more dangerous, but it’s impossible to take a break. A break means your kids are in danger, your family doesn’t get fed and you’re losing money that buys the food.

Although I think the post muddies the point a bit–the vast majority of people in the multitasking monster’s thrall aren’t in poverty–it touches on the fact that the process of getting anything done now takes a fraction of the time before email and instant messenging, and that formerly “fundamental” skills are now largely unnecessary (quick, find me a real-world application for the quadratic formula). As long as information is free, I don’t need to spend an hour scouring a textbook for an obscure quote from Thomas Aquinas any more than I need to know how to kill and butcher a cow. I don’t need to start my research at square one–the question is whether I can analyze and verify the information that already exists.

More than living in the barrio, Jackson’s greatest fear seems to be that Google will rot our brains, and we’ll “depend more on black-and-white thinking… That breeds a tremendous potential for tyranny and misunderstanding.” True, she could be referring to the 2009 Republican Party, or most of Bush 43′s time in office. Or… Tienanmen Square. Or… the McCarthyites. Or… the Salem Witch Trials.

The greatest danger to society is usually the people incapable or unwilling to break with past dogma and adapting to new situations and information. But those of us capable of managing the Internet’s incessant stream of distractions** will profit from the available trove of information. So come on, lady. Get with the times.

* People yell a lot on my block, too. For instance, if I remembered something when my girlfriend was a half-block away, I’d call her on her cell. Instead, my neighbors generally have the conversation with a half-block separating them. I don’t know if it’s the result of not having cell phones or what, but it is really irritating when I have a headache.

** I’m fully aware of the irony of proclaiming my ability to ignore distractions, given my “case studies in wasted time.”

More potentially-related posts:

1. 502 errors from the 410.
2. The DNS hack that never (really) happened.
3. We (Hate) Kenley.