The age of distraction and the nature of multitasking, continued

THE AGE OF DISTRACTION, CTD: Cathy Davidson goes even further to explain her defense of distraction and its effects on today's generation.

We’re not actually simultaneously paying equal attention to two things: One of the things that we’re doing is probably being done automatically, and we’re sort of cruising through that, and we’re paying more attention to the other thing. Or we’re moving back and forth between them. But any moment when there is a major new form of technology, people think it’s going to overwhelm the brain. In the 1930s there was legislation introduced to prevent Motorola from putting radios in dashboards, because it was thought that people couldn't possibly cope with driving and listening to the radio.

A previous entry on Davidson's work in this area can be found here.