I recently came across the finest example of pan-technology, multi-tasking I have seen yet. On a long-haul flight back from Seattle, a teenager two rows up traveling with her family was effortlessly engaged in six activities at once—and clearly enjoying every second of it. A MacBook open on her seat tray was like the control room for her life. She was taking pictures and video of herself and playing with the colors and settings, mashing this into a Warhol-esque video montage, pulling other pictures and footage from other folders on her laptop. Headsets in, she was nodding her head while listening to music. On her screen a video game was going in the left hand corner. Another application open had her writing something—a journal, a blog entry, homework? Finally, she was also randomly flipping through a (paper) copy of Seventeen magazine, an evolutionary vestige of old-world media that seemed quaint and old-fashioned in contrast (and had the effect of making her seem older and more grown-up). She kept up at all of this, toggling back and forth, for hours.
Here was a digital teen nimbly and simultaneously consuming and creating, working and playing—living her life by effortlessly manipulating multiple technology platforms. I looked around at the rest of the business class cabin. There were a handful of people hunched over their laptops. A few Blackberry users were tapping away with their thumbs. A successful looking man (I am guessing he was a lawyer) laboriously wrote out notes on a yellow-lined pad. A few Wall Street Journals rustled in the air. Everyone was busy, but here’s the striking part: Everybody else was doing just one thing.
Originally published 12/12/09