infundibulum

So this CNET article “Why can’t you pay attention anymore?” shot up del.icio.us and it, uh, caught my attention.

It’s the same old story about how gadgets & information overflow doesn’t increase productivity:

When people find that they’re not working to their full potential; when they know that they could be producing more but in fact they’re producing less; when they know they’re smarter than their output shows; when they start answering questions in ways that are more superficial, more hurried than they usually would; when their reservoir of new ideas starts to run dry; when they find themselves working ever-longer hours and sleeping less, exercising less, spending free time with friends less and in general putting in more hours but getting less production overall.

Yeah, okay, I guess that is pretty much true. But this part is all wrong:

I assume that high-tech companies, which are themselves such avid consumers of tech gadgetry, are rife with ADT?

Yes, but they’re also–and this is why I love those people so much–able to say no to it. They’re playful. Play is one of the best antidotes to this. They’re able to rise above it and get around it. The ones who suffer the most in that field are the ones who don’t have the
creative powers of the techies, and they just kind of slog along.

Hmm, he loves those people. Whatever. In my experience the windowing desktop system is exactly the right metaphor for “attention deficit trait,” and there is no one as prone to such a series of symptoms as a geek. Nobody needs to read all those bloglines posts. Or to obsessively reload del.icio.us.

But then, of course, if I hadn’t I wouldn’t be writing this.

Sorry, I have to go. I’m like 500 posts behind in my aggregator.