The Multitasking Generation: A Comparative Analysis

The world is shrinking and the networks are growing at an unprecedented rate. This is possible because of our technological advances in recent decades – especially computer and networking technologies. The Internet changed the way we connect and communicate with others; it made dissipating information as easy as clicking a button. The advent of social media coupled with the powerful mobile networks and devices have enabled us to be connected twenty four seven. But this always-on connectedness is not without its downsides, it has come to a point it’s being counterproductive. Two essays, Sherry Turkle’s “The Flight from Conversation” and Claudia Wallis’s “The Multitasking Generation” in the text “Reading Critically, Writing Well”, shed light on how these technological advancements are affecting us wholesomely - the way we communicate, the way we perceive our identities and the way we live our lives.

While both essays “The Multitasking Generation” and “The Flight from Conversation” focus on the negative effects of technology on society, “The Multitasking Generation” is more persuasive and thorough.
Both Turkle and Wallis begin their essays by describing a modern day reality – the use of networking gadgets. Turkle opens by stating, “At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail. At work executives text during board meetings,” while Wallis starts by a detailed description of the activities of the members of the Cox household. Wallis introduces the point later in the essay after quite a long description through a researcher Elinor Ochs’s voice (p. 387). In the beginning, unlike Turkle’s essay, Wallis’s “The Multitasking Generation” almost feels like reading a novel.
There are views that this is the modern way ¬of communicating – that this is actually advancement.

Turkle and Wallis both deal with some counter points against their arguments. Trukle is a little short both in supporting her assumptions and dealing with counterpoints. She assumes, “We are tempted to believe our little sips of online connection to turn into one big gulp of real conversation” but gives little to support that assumption (p 335). After all human civilization has been mostly in little ‘sips’, which has added up to this big gulp now. She quotes Shakespeare “Shakespeare might have said, “We are consumed with that which we were nourished by”” to make the point that all these gadgets are making us dumber (p 336). Wallis counters the argument of “Although such habits may prepare kids for today’s frenzied workplace, many cognitive scientists are positively alarmed by the trend” by quoting researches and specialists in the fields like Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institute of Neu-rological Disorders and Stroke (p

389).
In overall Wallis has given much more examples and research to support and to clarify her point that these gadgets that are enabling us multitask are actually not helping us. She even goes into the describing the brain process to show that its not actually more efficient or enjoyable to multi-task; that efficiency is decreasing and further this degenerates our abilities to do things properly and with enjoyment. She quotes many professors and researchers, and also happened to quote Turkle during one of her research interviews. She ties that nicely to say that we seem to be always connected through gadgets but lack real human connections.
I think the points that they are making is the same, but they go about slight differently in both writing styles and vantage points. Turkle mainly says the lack of face-to-face conversation is due to technology and that is making us miss many aspects of being a human. The simple joys of taking a walk, looking up at the sky and surroundings, and a real face-to-face conversation where you get to feel the other person’s gestures and non-verbal expressions. Wallis focuses on the view that technology is enabling us to multitask, and reforming especially this generation’s inherent nature. Multitasking is not an intrinsic human trait and counter productive for us.