Brainrub

My coworkers were lounging in their recliners, numb from an afternoon of tryptophan leftovers, back-to-back movies, and napping. Somewhere in all of that the wireless Internet connection went down. Given past experience, I expected an onslaught of profanity followed by pounding fists and a handful of tears. But none of that happened; no one moved, and the room grew quiet again.

I was sacked out on the couch, drifting between states of dream-filled bliss and hazy awareness. I was pulled lightly from sleep when I heard their voices. I thought I had heard someone say the Internet was down, but I wasn’t concerned. I was busy napping, see, and napping trumps everything, so I drifted back to my dreams.

Like most people I’ve observed lately, my coworkers are masters at what I call multi-format multitasking (MFM). They are able to watch movies on the television, surf the Net with their laptops, chat online, send text messages, read a book, study for their next test, do their homework, and nap. And like most, I’ve watched people hit the tremor-filled wall of wireless withdrawals.

So when the Internet went down that afternoon, I was surprised no one had gotten up to check the router. It seems the fastest and easiest solution to keep the tremors from surfacing. But that would require stepping out of the master control room of their electronic bubbles. Why do that when it’s easier to shift your thinking instead?

Anything that required the Internet, no matter how important, was shifted to the back burner. They filled the now-unoccupied space with something else: doodling, making playlists, writing notes in their PDAs, working on projects. All the while they continued to watch the movie, send text messages, make phone calls, do homework and nap. They did this, too, with ease and simplicity.

It seems similar to what happens when you hiccup, or sneeze, or miss your step. It happens—and then you move on to the next thing. Think of the last time you played a scratched CD. When it hits the scratch you click the “next” button and move onto the next song. The scratch doesn’t matter, see, because there are plenty of songs left.

When I finished napping and slid off the couch, someone asked me a question. I couldn’t process it very well in that moment, but I heard very clearly what came next: “the Internet is down.” It took about five seconds for my brain to run through a series of steps: check phone, check modem, check router.

The fix was simple: turn the router off, turn the router on. In less than 30 seconds, the wireless connection was back up. And in less than five seconds, I watched my coworkers seamlessly transition the Internet back into the fray while simultaneously moving its replacement to the back burner. They paused, too, long enough to say thanks.

It was like the scratched CD: they hit the “next” button and moved on, never missing more than a beat.

The Lure of Data: This NY Times article talks about data overload, addiction to gadgets, and whether or not all this multitasking is actually productive.

Multitasking or A.D.D.: A wired mom with three kids wonders if she’s the queen of multitasking or experiencing the symptoms of A.D.D.

Multitasking makes us stupid? We think we’re getting more things done by multitasking, but it turns out we aren’t doing any of them very well.

Like most others, I heard the news yesterday of Google’s impending “Android” platform for cellular software (stories available here and here, for example.) It’s stuff like that that makes me excited about the era in which we find ourselves. My first cellphone (purchased in 1996) was a bulky affair whose biggest bonus feature was that it could send and receive text messages. My current phone (a Nokia 6265i, which appears to be discontinued) is a full-featured media center, including a fairly functional video camera. I never even use most of its features.

Apple’s iPhone is an invention which I think most would say was an inevitability. We don’t need GPS on our phones. We don’t need a web browser. But sooner or later somebody was going to put all of that into it. And now Google is providing a platform upon which everyday programmers can add whatever they want. What will that mean for cellular communications in general? If Japan is any kind of example to follow, it could mean that your cellphone genuinely becomes your actual computer, replacing the need for any laptop or home pc. In fact this metamorphosis of the cellphone into the everyday computing device could eventually redefine what we mean when we call something a “computer.” My TV is a computer. My iPod is a computer. Etc. Where does the line officially blur? In a related news story, it was stated that sales of PC’s in Japan and other countries are way, way down versus 2006 and 2005, and numbers are expected to continue to decline. (Stories available here and here.)

The sad reality is that even with this announcement from Google, technologically speaking we (and by “we” I mean mostly North Americans) are at least 10 – 15 years behind Japan, and possibly four to six years behind Europe in terms of what we expect from our cellphones. Citizens of Tokyo read serialized books on their phones. They play Playstation-1-quality videogames on them. They shop with them. They use vending machines with them. It’s a huge shift in terms of the familiarity of that interface and what a user can be expected to do with it. I would like to think that this new Android platform gets us somewhere closer to that realm of functionality, and hopefully much sooner than expected.

I’m going analog. Not in that extreme right-wing/left-wing sort of way where I’m living off the grid and killing my own chickens. I just need some things in my life to give way because I’m falling out of sync, and I need a less digitally corruptive way to make everything feel like it’s back in order.

I must have stolen electronic equipment in a previous life to warrant the karmic injustice in this gadget-jealous life. Everything I have seems to be going belly up: television, gaming devices, computers.

I’ve finally let go of my PDA (an HP1910), which I have tried to integrate into my life for the past six years. Blame it on a technological flaw, bad karma, or happenstance, but dead batteries and continuous data loss throw everything out of order.

I’m done with it. I’m moving on. Moving on seems to feel like moving backwards. I’ve gone from a PDA to what I call my PAA (personal analog assistant), which is a Moleskin calendar almost identical in shape and size. All I need is a writing utensil—no more issues with batteries, syncing, or data loss.

This feels good to me, though, like it makes sense. Moving backwards feels like falling into order and falling into sync. In the two months that I’ve had my Moleskin, there hasn’t been a single issue with performance. It’s like magic when I open it up and see that all my data is still there.

I still want gadgets, though. I want all the kick-ass things I can take with me wherever I go so I can play, read and live in some brilliant electronic world. My karma, however, doesn’t appear to be in that same space. And I am, sadly, going to have to get over this.