Blog # 2 Unflattening our Discourses on Technology- Unpacking Multitasking

First of all, I would like to apologize that this post is submitted late. Now, I decided to do the first part of this blog. Clifford Nass argues that digital multitasking is making us less at tasks like socializing, and makes us less smart than usual. He believes that people are easily distracted and believe that they are able to multitask when in reality; it is difficult to focus when they are switching from one subject to the next or going back and forth between the tasks they are trying to complete. During his study, he divided people into groups and found out that “the people who multitask the most are the ones who are worst at it” (Clifford Nass, CBS news) http://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-multitaskers-bad-at-multitasking/ .

I have to agree with Nass on his argument. To be honest, I was surprised that the people who said that they multitask the most are the ones that are the worst at it. Also, I found it surprising that “the more media people use the worse they are at using any media.” We think that we are able to multitask, yet in reality, we are not good at doing it. For example, people thought they were able to text and drive that the same time, but in reality they were not able to do so and it resulted in multiple car crashes. When it also comes to multitasking, our mind tends to focus on things that get our attention. For example, when I was in high school, I would watch TV and work on my homework at the same time. However, the more I watched the TV, the more I seemed to forget about my homework assignment.

With all of this in mind, I do believe in the thought that we are distracting ourselves to death. The reason is because people including myself seem to have an obsession over technology and of the different types of media out there. There are times that we feel the need to connect to people online. If they are not able to get online, people try to connect to others using their phones all the time, texting while doing other tasks.  Another example would be my younger brother. He would always be on his phone either checking his email, Facebook account or texting his friends. No matter where I saw him, he was always on the phone even at the dinner table.

The concept of ‘Always On’ pretty much means that people are connected to technology all the time. No matter where people go, there are always distractions of technology. Even I would always get distracted by my iPod and plug in to listen to my music/videos. In high school, I was on the swim team and we went to the State competition. When I had a huge break in between my swim events, I would end up plugging in instead of cheering for my other teammates.

In Nass’ statement, he is lacking in a few dimensions. On the internet, we are able to describe ourselves as a completely different person from what we really are. Giving ourselves a completely different identity. Now, people are having trouble socializing with each other in public since we are not doing that much face to face connections. I think that multitasking is associated with technology because with the wide variety of the different types of technology out there, we want to be on as many as we can. This will definitely affect people when it comes to job interviews.