I feel sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread

Few would deny the fact that the invention of the Internet and all its relevant innovations, instant messaging systems in particular, has changed society forever. It has affected the way people think, act, gather and disseminate information, study, and communicate, just to name a few. These changes are by no means all good. There have been positive and negative effects that the Internet has brought. It would be wise to attempt to separate the good changes from the bad, and arrest any negative habits or tendencies that have been birthed through the advent of the dotcom era.
Just one generation ago, the preferred modes of social intercourse were face-to-face meetings (e.g. home visits, outings, etc.) and letters, or “snail-mail” as it is now known, and, occasionally, phone conversations. These older and more traditional methods of communication, particularly the former two, required one to be fully engaged with the person whom one is relating to.
This is to say that, if for example, you were speaking to Caroline, your friend, face-to-face, you would be speaking to her only, and (if you observed basic rules of courtesy) your mind would primarily be engaged in processing information received and deciding what to say in reply to her. I am speaking of the days before people carried phones and pagers with them everywhere, and when privacy was a common, and perhaps undervalued, commodity.
These methods of communication produced, I believe, a generation of people conditioned and equipped for methodical, concentrated application to one task at any particular time. The steadfast, dependable people that are my parents are part of that generation of “small-time” multi-taskers. When they study, they study. They don’t blast blaring, heart-pounding music into their ears while they do it. They study, and at the most, play soft, soothing Mendelssohn in the background while they do it. When they eat, they eat. They don’t eat, read, SMS, and catch a Chinese serial all at the same time. When they eat, they eat, and at the most, talk to you while they do it, or catch up on the day’s newspaper while downing their fried rice. When they work, they work. They don’t chat with 5 different persons online while they search for information.
I suppose that one of the issues that fill the generation gap is the inability of many parents to comprehend the vast capacity that their children have for multi-tasking. Multi-tasking, meaning involving oneself in several distinct activities that require brain processing power at one time. You see, I believe that for many of those who grew up without mobiles and instant messaging, things had to be done one at a time. There was such a thing as concentrating on a particular task, doing it well, and finishing it before one went to another task. But in today’s culture, shaped in part, I believe, by the technology that we are so fond of, people have been conditioned to compartmentalize their lives, to live their lives in many separate “windows”, much like the widely used operating software present in a vast majority of computers today.
I see the epidemic of crippling boredom that afflicts so many young people today as a symptom of an unhealthy mindset. We have grown so accustomed to doing so many things at one time, or working in so many windows at once, that we put ourselves in real danger of becoming “Jacks of all trades, but masters of none”. You see, the human mind does have limited resources, whatever the proponents of the limitless human potential doctrine may say. If you apply your cranial energies to one task, there are limited “cranial energy units” left to apply to other tasks. Think of it as spreading butter on bread. Everyone gets a set amount of butter for spreading over their various pieces of bread, or tasks in a day. If you were to spread your butter too thinly, the bread wouldn’t exactly be very tasty, would it? The trouble with our multitask way of life is that by applying ourselves to so many different tasks at the same time, we are, in effect, spreading our butter too thinly, and shortchanging ourselves, as it were. Each “piece of bread” receives much less butter, and spread messily and hurriedly for that matter, than it deserves.
I believe that most of us are familiar with the instant messaging, or IM for the tech-savvy, systems that have revolutionized the way we communicate. IRC, MSN, and ICQ. All well-known household names among modern teens today. These IM systems have replaced (I think) the phone and the pen and paper as the modus operandi of choice for keeping in touch with their friends and loved ones. Unfortunately, these systems also tend to reinforce the compartmentalized mindset and way of doing things. The IM universe of multi-windowed chat rooms offers an ideal environment for one to learn the fine art of multi-tasking, new millennium style, training us to spread butter over 5 pieces of bread at one time, chatting to this guy, and that friend, and that pal, while surfing for information for a school project and replying a mail, grabbing a sandwich, and downloading music and movies all at the same time.
The point is, as I stated earlier, that it is so important to ensure that each of our tasks and activities receive the proper amount of resources (time, energy, etc.) to enable us to perform them well. If we merely allow ourselves be caught up in the pop culture of the day, of killing 7 birds with half a stone, and miss the wisdom of steady, concentrated application to one task at one time…we will be so much the poorer. As I mentioned at the beginning, not all the changes that the Internet age has brought are good, and I sincerely believe that this is one of those negative changes: the development of a multi-tasking lifestyle that will, I fear, cause many to lose out on their potential and waste the butter that has been allotted them in this life.