Sanity and contemplation

David Levy, a University of Washington professor who studies high-tech communications and quality of life, acknowledges that the young have become adept at managing multiple sources of information at once, but he questions whether the ability to multitask has curbed their "ability to focus on a single thing, the ability to be silent and still inside, basically the ability to be unplugged and content."

"That's true for the whole culture," he said. "Most adults have a hard time doing that, too. What we're losing is the contemplative dimension of life. For our sanity, we need to cultivate that."

From a New York Times article with a slightly misleading title. David Levy's Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age is sitting in a stack of books I'm planning to read.

LINK: "Parents Fret That Dialing Up Interferes With Growing Up" (New York Times)

SEE ALSO: "Attention", "Multitasking makes you stupid"