2009/09/22 (Brussels) Multitasking. Keynote lecture at the International Conference on New Millennium Learners

Generation M

However, these numbers paint a distorted picture of our actual media use for a number of reasons. First, the SCP’s data only speak of media use during individuals’ leisure time. This means that, on top of users’ media consumption during leisure time, we should add the hours spent using media as a main activity or as a side activity while working or studying – at school, at work, during one’s commute or during housekeeping activities. Moreover, significant changes have taken place in the kinds of media that individuals use. The use of computers, and in recent years that of the internet, shows exponential growth, and this growth is at the expense of printed media, radio, and recently also of television, both in terms of the amount of users and the time spent on these media. This shift is important because the intensity of engaging with interactive media such as computers is often much greater than is the case with more passive media, which regularly function merely as decorative background noise – think of music in the workplace or in shopping centers – and hence require very little attention. Yet another issue is the fact that the aforementioned data depict average numbers and thus frequently present a misleading picture. According to statistics every Dutch citizen, on average, owns a pig, but in reality only very few Dutch citizens actually own a pig – and needless to say those who do, generally own much more than one. When we look more closely at the SCP’s numbers it turns out that computer use has grown disproportionately among young people in the last five years. Also, the numbers are misleading because research only registers which medium is used as the main activity and therefore overlooks the fact that – especially among young people – there is a tendency to use several media at the same time.

In 2005 the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a survey entitled Generation M in which this so-called ‘multitasking’ media consumption behavior was studied. This research showed that young people between the ages of 8 and 18 use media for 6 hours and 21 minutes every day, on average, but that because they multitask these same children were actually exposed to media for an average of 8 hours and 33 minutes. In over 25 percent of the time that these young people were using media they were using several media simultaneously, oftentimes four different media at the same time. On top of that, the hypermedial computer alone enables users to do many things simultaneously, for instance typing a school paper, googling the necessary information, discussing the work in progress with schoolmates, while pointing out that fun new movie on YouTube in the process, playing the latest downloaded mp3 songs in the background, while meanwhile a sound signals the arrival of three new emails and the summer sweetheart from Spain calls in with an urgent phone message via Skype. And of course in the mean time the ongoing stream of text messages never stops, as is evidenced by that funny ringtone that resounds every few minutes from the mobile phone that is placed beside the keyboard.

These developments are happening rapidly. According to a 2006 survey conducted by Yahoo! and OMD in eleven countries, which was entitled It's a Family Affair: the Media Evolution of Global Families in a Digital Age, over sixty percent of the teenagers and adolescents between the ages of 12 and 23 now prefers the computer over the radio when it comes to listening to music, while only 20 percent still view the radio as the main audio medium. Classical media do not disappear so much, but become degraded to the role of multimedia wallpaper, the background against which ‘the real deal’, interactive multitasking, takes place. Thanks to multitasking Americans have managed to stuff over 43 hours of activities in every 24-hour day. It is obvious that the notion of the ‘24/7 economy’ is in need of an update.

By now, multitasking has become a hot topic. Trend watchers and scientists have devoted a number of studies to this issue and the American magazine Time dedicated a large cover story to The Multitasking Generation in 2006. One of the recurring themes with regard to this issue is the possibly negative effect of extensive media use. The title of the Time article said it all: ‘Are kids too wired for their own good?’

The fears regarding the negative effects of media consumption can be separated into three main categories. First, there is the concern that superfluous consumption of media is at the expense of other activities, such as sports – it is probably not a coincidence that in the United States not just the numbers regarding media consumption but also those regarding obesity are higher than anywhere else in the world! Engaging in offline contacts such as those with family and friends may also suffer. Moreover, we could include the growing concern regarding the growth of media addiction, among other things the compulsive use of internet and text messaging, in this category. While these concerns are real we must be wary of exaggeration. After all, we already saw that the number of hours spent exclusively on media has not increased significantly over the last thirty years in our country. Also, media consumption need not rule out other activities. Multitasking is not limited to media use. He who does his daily fitness exercises while listening to his iPod will not gain any weight because of it!

A second concern is related to the unwanted content that users are exposed to, whereby sex and violence and the most feared. This concern does not limit itself to the overwhelming availability of violent and pornographic movies and images on the internet, but also refers to the fact that children may engage in contact with individuals with malicious intentions via MSN or chat rooms. Political propaganda is a source of concern as well – many extremist movements recruit their members via the internet. While this concern does not have much to do with multitasking per se it is clear that multitasking complicates parental control over harming media use. Who knows whether Chantal is really typing her school paper, of whether she is actually chatting to a lover boy?

Third – and this is the main point of focus for the rest of this presentation – there is a concern regarding the changes taking place in the nature of media use. These concerns do not revolve around the possibly harmful content of media use, but rather focus on the negative impact that new media may have as media on the users thereof. In the past pessimistic books have been written about the decline of writing culture and about the harmful influence of television (think, for instance, of Neil Postman’s Amusing ourselves to death). These days many educators and teachers complain predominantly about the negative influence of hypermedia. There are many complaints: children don’t carefully read any linear texts anymore, they flick back and forth without a goal, school papers are cut and paste from googled search results, and modern day youngsters cannot keep their attention focused on one specific task for more than a few minutes anymore.

The transition from sequential monotasking (conducting a series of tasks one by one) to multitasking (conducting various tasks simultaneously) is also perceived to be a dangerous development. Multitasking, it is said, would undermine the quality of learning, and increase chances of stress and burnouts. Moreover, according to a 1999 publication of the American Academy of Pediatrics multitasking might be related to the emergence or aggravation of disorders such as ADD, of which 3 to 5 percent of all elementary school children are said to suffer. In more recent publications an alleged connection is presented with other information processing disorders, such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and certain types of autistic pervasive developmental disorders.

Whether there are real causal connections between the increase in multitasking and the aforementioned disorders, or whether we are dealing with accidental correlations here, is for further neurological research to tell. However, a philosophical perspective, both natural and cultural, can aid in shedding light on some of the presuppositions regarding information and information overload. Such an analysis also offers us a starting point for a number of possible strategies to contain information overload. In the process we will see that the dividing line between healthy and pathological forms of multitasking is quite porous and that a disorder can, at times, also be a useful adjustment to new circumstances, depending on the context.

Information and information overload

The notion of ‘information’ has come to be one of the core concepts in almost all fields of sciences over the last century. There is more and more focus on (the use and correct understanding of) information, not just in the so-called information sciences, which have developed in line with information and communication technology, but also in many different disciplines within the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. In this respect the notion of ‘information’ resembles those of ‘matter’ and ‘energy’, which grew to be the core concepts of modern natural science in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to the logician and informatics theoretician Keith Devlin we must even understand information to be ‘one of the (and maybe the) fundamental characteristics of the universe, apart from matter and energy (and convertible into both).’ Within biology molecular biologist Eigen has already phrased this development accurately in his contribution to a book on the future of biology: ‘At the end of the twentieth century we have come to realize that we are formulating analogous questions in the various branches of biology. These can be summarized in the question ‘How is information generated?’ This applies both to the process of evolution on a molecular level, to the process of differentiation at the cell level, and to the thinking process in a network of nerve cells.’

To answer Eigen’s question one would have to now what information is exactly. Unfortunately, the analogy with the conceptual history of ‘matter’ and ‘energy’ is applicable here, too, since there is very little consensus regarding the meaning of this relatively new concept. This is related, undoubtedly, to the fact that it is used in so many different contexts. Here I limit myself to a general definition – which is underpinned extensively elsewhere – and which I will clarify using an everyday example.

When we read the weather forecast in the newspaper, then we do so in the hope that it informs us with regard to the weather. This information is contained in a code. In this case the code is a series of letters printed on paper using ink, which have specific meaning for the reader since they are placed in a particular order (assuming, of course, that the reader knows the language in which the code is written). By reading the newspaper this information regarding the weather is transferred via the eyes and the brain to the reader’s consciousness. When no interference occurs in this process, which is still quite mysterious to us in many respects, then the reader understands from the weather forecast that chances are significant that it will rain this afternoon. Based on that information he might adjust his behavior, for instance by bringing an umbrella.

Were we to formulate the example above in more abstract terms, then we can say that information consists of a series of signals or signs, ordered in a specific way (syntax), which are transferred from one physical system to another, and that have specific meaning for the receiving system (semantics) and/or may influence its behavior (pragmatics). The ‘and/or’ in the definition is important. It widens the definition to such a degree that it is not only applicable to human beings, but also to the information reception, processing, and expression of animals, cells and even lifeless automatons. According to this definition, after all, a nerve cell and a simple thermostat are information processing systems as well. While the thermostat and the neuron cannot ascribe meaning to the signals they receive, in contrast to human beings, they do respond to these signals, by switching the heating on or off or by contracting or relaxing a muscle, depending on the signal received.

By keeping the definition this wide we can distinguish between five different levels of information processing systems in relation to human beings: the nerve cell, the organ, the individual, the face-to-face group, and society. These systems differ greatly in many respects. For instance, the speed of transmission of information decreases dramatically when the complexity of the system increases. Whereas a nerve cell can process several hundreds of information bits per second and an organ can process approximately two hundred, an individual can process several tens of bits per second, with difficulty, and groups and societies can process a much smaller number. And whereas consciousness plays no part in information processing in relation to the nerve cell and the organ, it is vital in information processing for individuals and groups.

However, besides the important differences there are also some marked similarities between the different levels of information processing. One of these is particularly relevant for the theme of information overload. Time and again we see that when the input of information stays below or goes beyond a certain limit (that is, when information input underload or overload occurs) the system starts to display pathological behavior. When the input exceeds a critical value, the system stops functioning well, regardless of whether we are dealing with a nerve cell, an organ, an individual, a group, or a society. In this respect information also resembles matter and energy, by the way, because with matter and energy, too, we know that too small or too large of an input of these units can disturb the functioning of a living system, or even end it. Each time this involves a subtle oscillation of what the psychiatrist Rümke has once called the dialectics of opening and closing. Both too much and too little of an opening result in pathological behavior.

One of the most extensively researched forms of information input underload is sensory deprivation. Experiments showed that monkeys that spent the first three months of their lives in darkness never learn to see properly afterwards anymore. The reverse, information input overload also inevitably leads to problems. In all the systems we have distinguished the output is a linear function of the input, up to a certain limit, and when the system’s maximum capacity is reached, the output remains the same for a while, only to start displaying chaotic behavior afterwards – when the input remains on the increase – which eventually leads to complete collapse. This does not only apply to the cell, but also, for instance, to a consumer that received too much information about an article when purchasing it. In contrast to an overdose of energy or matter information overload generally is not fatal. After a period of rest information processing is restored to its normal functioning.

It is interesting to view the current information overload from this perspective. Since the invention of the printing press the amount of information that is available has increased exponentially. To grasp how big this increase really is, think for instance of the fact that one Saturday newspaper contains approximately as much information as a person living in the sixteenth century would read in his entire life. With the advent of radio, new visual media and the computer this process has only gained in speed. Today, the average manager at a company has access to over five hundred times as much information as the same manager twenty-five years ago. According to a 2003 study of the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California in Berkeley the information production of printed and digital media in 2002 was roughly 5 exabytes (10¹⁸). This is over three times as much as three years previously and probably less than a third of what was produced in 2005. If this development has continued this means that in 2008 approximately 45 exabytes of information was produced. Forty-five exabytes equals 7200 megabytes per earthling, or the equivalent of 7200 voluminous books per person. In 2002 31 billion emails were sent each day. A recent study estimated that the number of spam emails alone is 62 billion.

It is not surprising that this enormous amplification in information is accompanied by an increased incapability to process all of this information, and that information stress, information overload and ‘burn-outs’ increase hand over hand. We need to realize that stress and overload are not merely related to the quantity of information, but also to the amount and speed of its becoming outdated and replaced by other information, the proportion of signal and noise (how much irrelevant data must a person read before finding the right information?), and the amount of consistency in information (conflicting pieces of information increase levels of stress).

The pathology of information stress and overload has both a physical and a mental component. In overloaded individuals the heartbeat rises, as does their respiration, blood cholesterol level and muscle tension. Stress hormones are produced, the ability to scan visually decreases and some individuals experience headaches. The overloaded person feels that he is being swamped with information, he feels tense and experiences insecurity, anxiety, vulnerability, fear and panic. Oftentimes these emotions are accompanied by feelings of depression. The overloaded individual cannot function properly, he expresses himself in a frustrated and irritated fashion, and has less tolerance towards others.

Individuals are different in the amount of information that they can process per unit of time. Some individuals will feel overloaded more easily than others. Also, not everyone responds to information overload in the same way. Research has revealed that there are also differences between the sexes. Women appear to be suffering from information overload more easily than men and display pathological symptoms sooner, too. Women and men also respond differently. While men are inclined to respond actively, for instance by cursing, female respondents predominantly tend to report feelings of panic and fatigue. There are marked age differences, too. In general, young people can process more information than older people, which is probably related to the fact that they process information in a more effective way.

Information management

While some would argue that information overload is typical for our day and age, it is, in fact, a problem of all ages. Long before infomedia appeared on the scene there were problems with regard to information overload. The amount of information that incessantly presents itself to our senses is enormous and exceeds our capacity to process a number of times. Thankfully, we are not at the mercy of this stream of information; rather, we have a wide variety of strategies – on each of the system levels that we have seen – to battle the overload. I will discuss seven of those strategies, although in reality these cannot be strictly distinguished but are often combined.

One of the most efficient strategies is also the simplest, which does not mean that it’s the easiest: to temporarily cut oneself off from information, for instance by taking breaks regularly. A more radical approach consists of escaping the stream of information. Take a deep breath and pull the plug.

A second strategy is to process the overload of information erroneously. On the face of it, making mistakes in information processing appears to be a symptom of information overload, rather than a mechanism of defense, but it can in fact be the latter as well. By allowing oneself a larger margin of errors for a shorter or longer period of time, the system is temporarily relieved and allowed to recuperate.

A third strategy is to put a number of tasks on hold when too many are to be processed at once, in the hope of a quick decrease in information pressure, so that the postponed tasks can be completed after all. Those who follow this strategy and leave their email unanswered for a few day know, by the way, that the latter is often a vain hope. This strategy contains an element of postponing the inevitable.

Fourth, one can choose to filter information. This happens, for instance, when someone searching for information on a certain topic decides to search only on the internet, while ignoring the library, or decides to use a search engine to only find information that is no older than a week. We happen to apply this strategy of filtering constantly in our daily lives, for instance when we are in a crowd of people and concentrate only on the person we’re talking to, thus ‘filtering out’ all the other conversations taking place around us.

A fifth, somewhat related form of information reduction involves the generalization of information in the selection process. When sorting a deck of cards one can choose to group all spades, clubs, diamonds and hearts in four piles, but one can also speed up the sorting process by only grouping black and red symbols.

A sixth, very convenient strategy revolves around grouping information. In English literature this is also called chunking. Think for instance of mnemonic aids such as acronyms.

The seventh strategy returns us to the theme of multitasking. When the number of tasks becomes too much we may also try to complete several of them at the same time. For instance, by watching television while making homework, by using a mobile phone while driving, or by working in multiple windows simultaneously on one’s computer. An important subcategory of multitasking is delegation. By delegating one or more tasks to others we can decrease the information pressure on ourselves. We can delegate to other persons, but also to artifacts. This kind of delegation deserves further scrutiny.

When we talk a look at the evolution and cultural history of Homo Sapiens we see that this latter form of information management has a very long history and takes us back to a period in which information overload led to cultural crisis. I am referring to the Neolithic Age, also known as New Stone Age, a period that began around ten thousand years ago (and in the Netherlands, with the builders of megalithic tombs roughly five thousand years ago; Heinrich Heine was a bit too optimistic when he wrote that everything happens fifty years later in the Netherlands). In the Neolithic Age an important revolution took place in the lives of the archaic Homo Sapiens. While Homo Sapiens were originally hunter-gatherers, living in small groups of twenty-five to thirty individuals led by an alpha male (as we can still witness in anthropoids today), in this period they began to settle and farm. Settlements were created and the size of the community increased considerably, which also increased the complexity of social life. This process was further intensified by technological developments such as woodworking, metallurgy, and the creation of large stone structures, which coincided with the development of agriculture and the building of permanent settlements and tombs. The amount of information that was available soon became too much for oral culture. It is not surprising, therefore, that the medium of writing emerged in this period. In light of the previous we can understand writing as a delegation to an artifact. Since further growth of the brain was not an option due to Homo Sapiens’s already quite top-heavy skull, the function of memory was delegated to an external medium. The plasticity of the human neocortex enabled the transformation of the cognitive structure that was required for this delegation. After all, new capabilities had to be learnt to store and retrieve the delegated information: reading and writing.

Seen from this perspective, the development of the computer in that past half century can be compared to the development of writing. In the age of the computer – which, because of the abundance of silicon, we might dub the Newest Stone Age – once again we encounter an immense information overload. This kind of overload – the history of the human life form is not devoid of irony – is largely the result of the enormous success of writing, particularly after the development of printing. This calls for an extended kind of cognitive delegation and a new adjustment of our cognitive structure. This time it is not just the storage of memories, but also the preceding thinking processes themselves that are delegated. And then we can get down to the real multitasking! Computer users can let machines complete a number of tasks that previously required human intelligence. Finding specific information, which previously took a whole afternoon in a public library, now takes only a fraction of a second thanks to the use of a search engine. And whereas old DOS-computers forced us to complete computerized tasks one by one, an Apple or Windows user can now lose himself in extensive multitasking, thanks to the possibility of working in multiple windows at the same time. Modern-day users do several things at the same time, and leave an important part of their tasks to the machine.

Multitasking

But, as was the case when writing emerged, using this new extension to the human cognitive apparatus requires the active involvement of the user. The various processes need to be managed, but also often require the constant attention and input of the user. This is especially the case when we use communication software, such as email or an instant messenger. And this is precisely where things run the risk of derailing, since human beings are not very good at multitasking when confronted with processes that require attention.

To be sure, this applies to computers as well, and even more so, at least to serial computers as we know them today. Because what we call multitasking in relation to computers really consists of the constant switching between one task and another. Traditional computers, based on the Von Neumann architecture, only have a single information processing ‘nerve cell’, the central processor (although we have made the first careful steps towards parallel computers with the advent of special processors on the graphical card and with the emergence of duo and quattro processors). Because that one cell processes information millions of times faster than a human nerve cell it appears as if the personal computer can conduct many tasks at the same time, but in reality it constantly rapidly switches between the various tasks.

Compared to the traditional serial computer human beings are quite good at multitasking, because our brains consist of billions of parallel processors. As long as we are conducting activities that require little attention, because they take place more or less automatically, multitasking occurs without problems. Breathing or metabolism do not require our attention at all. In many learnt motor skills, such as walking, biking or driving a car, we can largely rely on our ‘autopilot’. This is why we can focus on the news playing on the car radio while driving, or talk to someone on a mobile phone. The problem is, however, that when we are driving we also need to focus our attention on the road, because unexpected things can happen at any moment there. He who focuses on his mobile phone when that happens can create serious havoc. The point is that while we can do several things at the same time, we can only keep our full attention focused on one thing at a time. In this respect our brain does, in fact, resemble a serial computer.

When we have to conduct two tasks that both require our full attention, for instance conducting a phone call and replying to an email, then we don’t really multitask but rather switch back and forth constantly from the one task to the other, actually just like a serial computer. In itself this is quite an accomplishment, one that other primates hardly match. This is because we are capable of keeping long term goals in mind while simultaneously focusing our attention on another activity for the moment. When a phone call interrupts our reading a novel we have no trouble picking up where we left off afterwards. In 1999 researchers at the Cognitive Neuroscience Section of the American National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to establish that this capacity, which is typical of human intelligence, and is also known as branching, can be localized to a specific area of the brain called Brodmann Area 10. This area is part of the frontal lobe, the most advanced part of the neocortex, which is also responsible for our self-consciousness. It is one of the last areas to develop, which is the reason why small children are not good at multitasking, and one of the first to degenerate in aging, which explains why older people have more difficulties in rapidly switching between tasks and also in filtering out background information.

Let’s return to the question of how new media, and particularly the multitasking that is enabled by the hypermedial computer, transform our cognitive processes in light of these findings. To what extent is multitasking different than the sequential processing of information? In recent years quite a bit of neuropsychological research has been conducted on this question. For instance, research was done to compare the learning behaviors of multitasking youth and the ‘serial generations’ of the past. One of the findings was that the effect of multitasking on learning is not very significant when combining focused and background tasks. For example, research on the impact of background music on mathematical knowledge, which was conducted by the American psychologists Manthei and Kelly, showed that background music does not have any effect on learning, neither positively nor negatively. This finding aligned with a lot of older research in this field.

Research by Christiansen and Conway, which was published in Psychological Science in 2006, takes things one step further: they showed that their test subjects were very capable of simultaneously processing information offered to different senses. Multitasking only fails when various streams of information enter via the same sense. Talking to someone while simultaneously carefully studying a painting works fine; however, we are clearly much worse at listening to or conducting two conversations at the same time. In the former parallel multitasking appears to be a good strategy, enabling a more efficient way of processing information. In the latter we switch to semi-multitasking, or ‘serial multitasking’: just like a computer we switch back and forth in processing the various tasks

Now, several other studies show that semi-multitasking is considerably less efficient and effective than sequentially and separately conducting each task. Why is it less efficient? Theoretically it shouldn’t matter whether we conduct two tasks sequentially or bit by bit by switching back and forth. But switching takes time, too, and this means that a multitasking strategy simply takes more time, which in itself is already a stress-enhancing factor. Moreover, the subjective experienced time is even longer than the actual one. When we process two tasks of ten minutes sequentially, then the first one is done after ten minutes and the second after twenty, which means that a task is completed after fifteen minutes on average. When we multitask and switch back every minute we would also be done after twenty minutes – leaving aside for now the time lost in switching – but because the first task would only be completed after nineteen minutes and the second after twenty the average time before finally completing a task is nineteen-and-a-half minutes.

That this kind of multitasking is, in fact, also less effective, was shown in research conducted by the psychologists Foerde, Knowlton and Poldrack in the Proceedings of the American National Academy of Sciences in 2006. In their study a group of test subjects were given a stack of cards with a simple classification assignment. A second group was given the same task, but was also given headphones on which a beep was played at regular intervals. This group was also given the assignment of registering the amount of beeps. It turned out that the group that was distracted with the beeps had done the classification assignment just as well as the group that was not distracted. However, when asked they did turn out to have more difficulties in providing extra information on the selected cards. fMRI scans showed that in persons in the second group information was not stored in the hippocampus, the seat of our so-called declarative memory – in which we regularly store our experiences – but in the striatum, the seat of our procedural memory, in which our motor skills are stored. Somehow information that is stored in the brain’s striatum is less flexible.

Neuropsychological research also suggests that there is a possible link between multitasking and information disorders such as ADD, CFS and autistic pervasive development disorders. According to research conducted by psychologists of the University of Victoria children with ADD mainly have difficulties with serial multitasking and especially planning and monitoring multiple tasks. When asked to work on a number of tasks within a certain amount of time and to make sure that they at least paid some attention to all tasks, it turned out that these children have serious problems to actually work on each task, compared to the control group, while they still remembered exactly what was asked of them afterwards.

This does not say anything about the factors that cause such disorders of information processing. Environmental factors appear to play a role. While research hasn’t shown conclusively, up until now, that the excessive use of hypermedia causes ADD and related disorders, it is clear that intensive interaction with these media aggravates the disorder. Various studies show that passionately and frequently playing computer games that provide players with a large dose of stimuli lowers the metabolic activities in the frontal lobe, in which attention, planning and control are seated.

These effects of the frequent use of hypermedia are not just found in persons suffering from an information management disorder, by the way. According to the American psychiatrist Edward Hallowel, who has done research on ADD over the last decade, healthy information processors display the same characteristics as persons suffering from ADD. After extensive exposure to a multitude of stimuli they, too, suffer from a decreased ability to focus on a single task. He calls this Attention deficit trait (ADT), a phenomenon that thankfully disappears of and by itself when the information worker removes himself from the hyper-stimulating environment that causes information stress. In other words, in these cases the problem is not ‘hardwired’

Cognitive neuroscientists working at the University of Oregon, who published their research in Nature in 2005, also found a connection between ADD and problems of information management. Their research focused on differences in visual memory. The researchers conclude that such differences are not so much about the storage capacities of the brain, but about which information is selected for storage. Those suffering from an information management disorder oftentimes do not store less information, but rather more. The problem is, however, that most of it is irrelevant information. Somehow people suffering from an information disorder have problems filtering information.

As I have noted before men appear to follow different strategies than women in these matters. Whereas men choose to dive in and hyperactively zap back and forth between the many unfiltered stimuli, women tend to respond passively, with tiredness. This is reflected in the fact that ADD is found more often in men, whereas chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is found more often in women. Both types of disorders stem from an inability to concentrate; attention is diffusely spread across many tasks. In this sense both types suffer from multitasking. However, the response is opposite: when filtering is impossible it is all or nothing. The ADD sufferer desperately tries to process all of the information, whereas the chronically fatigued person calls it a day.

Pathological forms of multitasking can help us to come to a better understanding of this strategy. But although we must not trivialize these disorders, we also should not only see multitasking as a problem. As we have seen the various forms of multitasking can be both effective and efficient, and for many people – especially young people – they provide adequate means to domesticate information overload. Even when multitasking does not work well, for instance when it is demonstrably less effective and efficient than conducting a number of tasks serially, then there can still be some other kinds of advantages involved. For some people regularly switching between tasks is a way to constantly create some adrenalin and thus to stay energetic and awake. In an interview with the magazine of the University of Oregon Edward Vogel, one of the researchers of the research I mentioned last, quickly pointed out that we must be careful in our use of the term disorder: “It may be that being able to remember apparently irrelevant information has some advantages. A minor distractedness is characteristic of people with a profound sense of imagination and creativity.

In the United States there is even a movement for the emancipation of hyperactive man. An energetic supporter of this movement is Thom Hartmann, author of books such as Attention Deficit Disorder: a different perception. Hartmann argues that we shouldn’t view ADD as a disease, but rather as a gift. He points out that many creative minds, such as Edison and Einstein, were ‘gifted’ with ADD. What healthy people label as hyperactive is, in fact, creative chaos, so the argument goes: “I am not Attention Deficit, you’re just boring!”

In light of the previous Hartmann’s evolutionary explanation of ADD is interesting. Human beings gifted with ADD are actually hunters in a world of farmers, according to him. Homo Sapiens transformed from a hunter/gatherer into a farmer in the New Stone Age and this resulted in an important reconfiguration of his cognitive structure, as I have argued above. Those who hunt need to ‘be sharp’ for short periods of time and concentrate on their prey. Farmers, in contrast, have more use of an ability to formulate long-term goals. He who sows the land must plan ahead considerably. The dominant type of man since the New Stone Age is the farmer. However, the modern-day ADD sufferer, with his short attention span, shows more similarities to the hunter/gatherer instead.

But maybe there is hope for him. Maybe we are going through a new cognitive transition right now – in the Newest Stone Age –, called forth by the new phase of information overload that we’ve entered. In the same way that the Neolithic hunter had to adjust to the new medium of writing, the modern-day ‘farmer’ has to adjust to the hectic world of the computer. The hunters, lost in a world of farmers, might just take advantage of their disadvantaged position and end up in the front. Perhaps those suffering from ADD and ADT are not so much the victims of pre-Neolithic cognition, but are rather gifted with post-Neolithic cognition! Farmers among us: beware. The future is all for Homo Zapiens, the multitasking information hunter!