Thought-provoking NY Mag essay on the consequences of living in an age of perpetual distraction. Been thinking about this one a lot, in the context of MeFi and other addictions.
posted by jcruelty on May 26, 2009 - 52 comments

"Whoever said the early bird gets the worm could have been talking about me, only I’m a person, not a bird, and I’m not interested in getting worms, more like getting things done. But I do get up early." The secret to success in the wired age, according to Andy Borowitz [previously, 2].
posted by l33tpolicywonk on May 25, 2009 - 16 comments

"Multitasking messes with the brain in several ways. At the most basic level, the mental balancing acts that it requires—the constant switching and pivoting—energize regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination and simultaneously appear to shortchange some of the higher areas related to memory and learning. We concentrate on the act of concentration at the expense of whatever it is that we’re supposed to be concentrating on." [more inside]
posted by jbickers on Aug 21, 2008 - 27 comments

"Tammy Wynette was quite wrong when she sang 'Sometimes it's hard to be a woman'. It's not. It's always hard to be a woman. Especially if you're a man." Hard-hitting journalism from The Daily Mail. [more inside]
posted by miss lynnster on Sep 20, 2007 - 55 comments

Those of you with crazy multi-tasking skills might want to check out Arcadia, where you play four different super simple games at the same time. Extra points for the stylishly retro chunky pixels look, which brings me right back to happy afternoons spent with my 2600!
posted by lia on Aug 5, 2003 - 18 comments

Human Multi-Tasking: If you count all the things we do two-at-a-time (TV-and-computer, music-and-reading), the average Metafilterer does 29.8 hours a day!
Considering that the survey was commissioned by MTV, the TV channel most likely to be playing in the background while doing something else, it's a little self-serving. Viacom (owners of MTV, CBS, UPN and Nick) needs some way of measurement that doesn't show TViewing going down...
posted by wendell on Jun 28, 2000 - 4 comments