Social means in-person interaction in the case, not virtual.

I saw Miniature Earth a few years back and find myself wondering if any of the numbers have changed.

Even though most of the World doesn't have computers, a large percent do have mobile phones, with something like 4 billion handsets on the planet. So, more people than you think have WWW or some form of it.

My brain works best in single-threaded mode. It can handle multiple threads, but each thread degrades the performance of the other active ones.

I have a theory that some diseases e.g. autism are brain advances that we can comprehend, so why not?

loved it when the guy in the closet decided to get a life and entered (sort of hacked) some frito lay contest and won all the prizes. i've thought about trying that exact stunt over the years…

BTW, are you saying I email you too much?

i can chew gum and walk at the same time, but not much else. i think the idea of multi-tasking is a myth…you can't actually do it. we're not threaded…maybe ADD is threaded? I think my daughter is the next evolutionary step…so perhaps tacanderson is right…

I think I've mentioned before that I control areas of the day (mornings) when I need to concentrate on deep thinking tasks. I shut off and avoid the distractions during these times b/c I need the quiet time. I know how I work best, and I don't want to train myself to work in new ways this late in my life.

I don't necessarily agree that losing the ability to perform undistracted thinking is a leap forward though. I have learned to multi-task, but can a person (not with ADD mind you) learn how to think quietly without distraction? I'm not sure, but I'll bet there will be plenty of research espousing both sides of that argument in the coming decade.

Appreciate the comment, good stuff.

For most of my life I've been told I have a disability. Now in our always on society I believe it's everyone else who has the disability. You see I'm ADD. Not the sleep deprived, hyper distracted, over caffeinated state that popular culture refers to when they all half-jokingly talk about ADD. But the real, ADD where I take prescription meth to calm down and I take caffeine to “take the edge off” not wake up.

But for the rest of you I do believe there's hope. Like building muscles I think multi-tasking can be learned. Not that it should be used for learning but in many work environments I think it can be a successful mental state.

There's a great article in NY Mag you should read http://nymag.com/news/features/56793/.

My personal view is much like the French philosopher Michel Foucault points towards in Madness and Civilization, each forward jump in progress leaves behind a subset of the population. I have to wonder if the next leap forward will leave behind those who can't multi-task.