Internet Multitasking Syndrome — Why Make it Up?

Over at College Media Innovation there is talk about the new skill set that journalists need to keep up with the pace of information on the Web. They highlight a scene with Cory Doctorw at a conference surfing the Internet. It comes via Seth Godin.

I sat next to Cory at a conference today. It was like playing
basketball next to Michael Jordan. Cory was looking at more than 30
screens a minute. He was bouncing from his mail to his calendar to a
travel site and then back. His fingers were a blur as he processed
inbound mail, visiting more than a dozen sites in the amount of time it
took for my neck to cramp up. I’m very fast, but Cory is in a different
league entirely. Rereading this, I can see I’m not doing it justice. I
wish I had a video…

This was never a skill before. I mean, maybe if you were an air
traffic controller, but for most of us, most of the time, this data
overload skill and the ability to make snap judgments is not taught or
rewarded.

As the world welcomes more real-time editors working hard in
low-overhead organizations, I think it’s going to be a skill in very
high demand.

It is a skill. One that I find myself becoming increasingly good at, but also worried about the consequences. (read on)

I tend to surf the web with 20 or so tabs at a time. I have three regular emails (down from four) and a slew of log-ins to I don’t know how many social networks.

It’s a great skill set to have. I don’t mean to brag, but often when people see me at work they become amazed/frightened at the pace in which I work. A former journalism professor described watching me at the computer to watching a virtuoso pianist at the keyboard. I like to think of it more like I’m a fighter jet pilot about to take off. I strap in, get online and take off. Before I started NewAssignment.Net I was even thinking of writing a NaNoWriMo novel about a young Web savvy writer for whom the Internet was a real playground of consequences (actual plot yet to be determined — but that’s the nature of NaNoWriMo novels).

But when I spend too much time at the computer I can tell it effects my cognitive abilities in the real world. I can’t command-z mistakes (although I try), nor should I put real conversations in a back tab when I get distracted. Mostly, however, it makes my communication skills a bit hazy. I search for words. I guess it’s a trade off. I can find anything you want on the net — my search skills alone are above par. But after a solid 10 hours on the screen I can’t find the words to describe the feathered creature that I eat for protein (chicken).

So I did what any good wannabe-blogger-pundit would. I made up a fake disease and wrote a story about it. “Internet Multitasking Syndrome.” Come take a look.