Continuous Distraction Mode (CDM)

The increasing use of "crawls" at the bottom of TV broadcasts seems to me to be reflective of our movement into what I'm calling Continuous Distraction Mode, or CDM. You can add texting-while-talking to that syndrome, as another example where people no longer seem capable of (or at least happy) committing themselves to doing just one thing at a time anymore. I've gotten very frustrated, at times, with trying to hold a conversation with someone who's constantly grabbing their Blackberry off their hip while we're talking. At what point did we decide, as a culture, that it was better to have many different things going on at once than to be focused on just one?

I probably have a skewed perspective on this topic, because I've always been inclined to "multi-task", even back when I was a teenager doing my homework while watching TV. These days I often blog while watching CSI or Law and Order, and have no problem being both coherent in my writing (I hope) and following the details of whatever is on the big screen. On those odd occasions where it doesn't work for me, I simply abort one or the other of the activities. What I find, though, is that most people don't seem to be very good at this, and so you end up repeating yourself a lot, or getting half-hearted responses because, while they may have heard what you said, they either didn't process it completely or simply didn't give it much consideration. And let's fact it: that's just plain rude. I'd rather not talk to a person at all than only get partial attention from them. Does that make me a dinosaur?

As we enter a new year today, I wonder how much worse CDM is going to become before it ever gets any better. At some point, you'd think most people would realize that it's preferable to be 100% engaged in one activity than to be doing a half-assed job at two or three, but I don't think we're there just yet.