Eric's Beijing Diary

"...this multitasking addiction is a hallmark of impatient babyboomers and their younger siblings."

Maybe she's right. I'm listening, now to a downloadable audio file, which is a discussion on NPR "Books" about downloadable audio books. The discussion peaked my curiosity, so I went to the website for Blackstone Audio Books, a publisher of many of the audio books I used to rent for listening on the road when I was a truck driver. That was a few years ago now, and the books I rented were all audio tapes. I would put them in the stereo tape deck as I was driving, and turn down my CB radio, so that I could concentrate on the book I was listening to. When I was finished with the book, I would turn it in at one of the two or three hundred truck stops which were part of the network, and therefore authorized to receive returned books. By doing this, I was able to turn hundreds and thousands of hours of "dead time" into a productive learning opportunity. I also bought several BBC audio productions of Shakespeare plays. Most audio books feature some actor or actress reading a book chapter by chapter. But the BBC Shakespeare productions were actual radio dramatizations featuring the best Shakespearian actors and actresses in the world. I also bought a copy of Gregory Peck reading the King James New Testament. And I also had a copy of the Old Testament on tape. I went through the Old Testament three or four times while I was on the road (in addition to reading it in my daily devotions), and I heard Gregory Peck read the New Testament more times than I can count.

My world has changed considerably since then, but the mulitasking addiction, if anything, has gotten worse. I downloaded the free iTunes software from Apple, and subscribed to several podcasts. "Podcast" is just a fancy name for a downloadable mp3 file. The only difference is that podcasts are updated automatically. You subscribe to the podcast by entering the URL into your podcasting software. Every time you open iTunes, it will go out on the Internet and check for the latest edition to your podcast. But my multitasking is not limited to podcasts. I also download sermons from the Internet. Every afternoon, I go to a nearby restaurant and get a cup of milk tea. Then I study my Chinese while listening to sermon lectures.

There are "pros" and "cons" to this multitasking thing. It does allow you to get information you simply would not have time for if you always did only one thing at a time. I watch very little TV, because I have become accustomed to listening to news and other podcasts while I am working. I cannot get anything else done while I am sitting with my eyes glued to the tube. But there are times when the process of doing two things at a time can be distracting. It's kinda hard to explain, but any given data flow tends to be undulating. That is, there are moments of monotony, and moments of tension. Be it a story, a piece of music, a sermon, or a news item, the information flow is not static. Some moments require quite a bit of concentration. Others quite a bit less. So under normal circumstances, writing a paragraph like this while I am (right now) listening to a book on tape is not too much to handle. But sometimes I am really concentrating on my writing, and I miss some detail of the story I am listening to. Or I get engrossed in the story I am listening to and stop writing. So doing two things at one time usually takes a little longer than doing one. But it definitely takes a lot less time than just a single task. Sometimes, the combination can be a little hard to develop. For example, if I am writing in my prayer journal while I am listening to a bible study on the Internet and trying to follow along with my e-Sword software, so that I can keep track of the Greek and Hebrew word origins, as well as checking to see what the commentators have to say ( I have downloaded and installed the Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes modules for e-Sword.), the multitasking gets to be a bit much, and I experience information overload. The other problem is that extensive multitasking develops a tendency to expect a certain level of information flow. When your brain does not get it, you become bored and your mind starts to wander. I fall asleep easily if I am just sitting and listening to a lecture.