Blog 2: Digital Nation Unflattening our Discourses on Technology

          Clifford Nass argues that "people who chronically multitask show an enormous range of deficits" (Nass, 2013). People are easily distracted and think they can multitask when it actually is harder for people to focus when switching back and forth between tasks. He created a study where he split up subjects in two groups; those who consistently do a lot of multitasking and those who do not. The research suggested that, "individuals who frequently use multiple media approach fundamental can multitask information-processing activities differently than do those who consume multiple media streams much less frequently...... those who infrequently multitask are more effective at volitionally allocating their attention in the face of distractions" (Ophir, Nass, Wagner, 2009). I do agree with Nass and believe that people think they are good at multitasking, yet all of this data and evidence proves otherwise. I think that our brains are very good at letting us think we can go back and forth between tasks so quickly, but our brains our amazing and quick, yet that does not mean they are necessarily all efficient at times. In psychology I learned that only part of your brain is actually paying attention to one thing at a time, that our brains just switch quickly back and forth between what we are doing. Take listening to music while doing homework as an example. You have headphones in your ears to hear the music, and you have a book in front of you with a paper and pen to write your thoughts on your assignment. You write a few sentences down, then mouth along to the words to the song your listening to then go back to writing. Your not listening to the music while you are writing down and reading, you are just quickly switching back and forth with your motors to pay attention to what is most important at that time.           

          I think in the era we are in now, we definitely our "distracting ourselves to death" with the obsession that everyone has with their technology. The media and the constant urge to always want to be "connected" with the world has absorbed into the lifestyles of most people. I feel that a lot of what people find important are materialistic problems or half the time deal with someone else's life that one may be involved in. If you just look around be are absorbed in their phones everywhere you go. Now a days, it is hard to even go to restaurant without seeing everyone on their phones while eating. The amount of distractions are increasing everyday. Digital media has made people far more distracted today, then previous forms of media. It use to be that people would grab the newspaper in the morning to read and catch up with that is going on in the world. Now, people are checking their multiple social media accounts, emails, news sites, apps, etc. on the regular throughout their day.    

          The concept of "Always On" is the continual obsession with connection to technology. There are always distractions of technology wherever you go. People sleep with their phones, take them wherever they go, and are ALWAYS on them. When I use to play on a sports team every time we would get a quick water break, girls would use that time to check their phone and respond to people. Was it really that important that they had to be distracted from getting water and stray away from focusing on what was going on at practice? The concept "Always On" is taken for granted because it is so much easier and faster now to find information and communicate, so we make sure we are ALWAYS connected.           

          In Nass' statement, "we cannot possibly multitask, the sociological literature proves this," he misses important dimensions about people lives in regard to gender, race, sex, or class. We are able to make identities and personal profiles that may not actually identify with our 'reality' identity. We can choose to be whatever persona we want to be on the internet and say whatever we want (for the most part). And being able to choose the identity you want to be is more appealing and easier than real life, so people may want to only 'live' through that way. People are loosing how to socialize because they are losing the face-to-face connections with people due to the importance of using technology. Of course we have many distractions and I am sure that social skills have assisted into creating multitasking.I think multitasking is associated with technology because of how many things there are now. Technology is hurting people's social skills, which can hurt them in the future when people want jobs. Our culture has become a cyber culture and everything, especially in the US, is dependent on digital technology. 

This video I put with my blog shows you an exaggerated version of multitasking only without so much using technology. I think it is pretty funny, yet somewhat true. 
http://youtu.be/Aey2kG6Ad8k