Hello
Hello
People looking down
As electronic devices
Looking up
Over hear
Over their
Owned buy virtual realty
Totally
Sum wear
Ails
Hole heartedly
Parting from wholly presence
How due they pay
A tension
So what? Sow what?
Driving us up the wall
As a madder of fact, into the wall
Tsk, tsk, tsk
Sow much for multi-tsking
As we reap life into little pieces
Too fee’d a hire mindfuelness
Who says you can’t halve it
Awe
This poem is about one of my favorite pet peeves: multi-tasking. My annoyance ranges from bleeping devices and blank presence to threats of life and limb from distracted drivers within striking range of me while I am biking. Multi-tasking, by its very nature, is bad for the brain. In technical terms, multi-tasking turns your brain to mush [see here for a summary of multitasking problems]. The mind can only concentrate on one thing at a time. When we switch our concentration back and forth we necessarily lose something in the process. Accomplished multi-taskers can train their brain to lose less during transitions but there is always a loss. More importantly, extended concentration trains specific regions of the brain to deal with specific tasks. When we chronically divide our attention, vacillating quickly between multiple tasks or activities, brain activation becomes diffuse and nonspecific. This results in more poorly developed brain functioning for each activity (compared to doing each activity for an extended period of time). In the runs of post-modern civilization, multi-tasking is the enema of concentration — full presence — and highly developed brain expertise. Further, assuming that a distracted multi-tasker doesn’t kill or maim you, the greatest challenge of multi-tasking is to simple presence, or mindfulness. Perhaps the most important gift humans can give one another is to be fully present to one another. Even when others aren’t around, mindfulness is perhaps the most awesome gift we can give ourselves, simply to be fully present for our own lives, whatever the external circumstances. 
Multi-tasking divides and degrades our ability to be fully present, both in any given moment, or long-term by undermining the disciplined ability to be mindful. I suspect that the fear of missing out on something underlies much of the drive behind multi-tasking. My suggestion, for those that truly want awe of life, is to recognize that you can’t halve it, awe.
