Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

A friend and fellow writer I hadn’t heard from for a while sent me an email the other day. She wanted some advice, and I readily offered it. Then she wrote me a nice response–the sort of casually witty, stupidly impressive little thing that no one I know could have written but her.

And at the bottom of her thoughtful email, Google offered me three quick responses in the iOS Gmail app:

Thanks!

You’re welcome!

Sounds good to me!

With a tap, I could auto-fill my response to her. Just like on Google’s Allo Messenger or Apple’s iMessage, I could let the software respond to an email or text not with a unique response, but a quick tap to say something like “haha,” “lol,” or “talk later.”

Sometimes, it’s tempting! Sometimes–especially dealing with work emails in the off hours–I have hit those quick response buttons. But I also know that it’s very bad for me, and it’s bad for us, as a collective, creative species. Today, we face one of the promises of Silicon Valley: to quantify us. To average our individuality out. To train a model on all of those collective averages, creating the ultimate average response. To provide the convenience of never speaking uniquely again....

Everybody multitasks, but what most people don’t realize is that, in fact, multitasking doesn’t work. Studies show that only about 2% of people are capable of effectively multitasking, but that doesn’t stop the remaining 98% of people from trying. And with today’s technology, everyone multitasks more than ever—from using smartphones in class to tablets while watching television, there are always multiple things to be doing at one time.

While multitasking may make you feel like you’re accomplishing more things in less time, in actuality trying to multitask does more harm than good: It reduces productivity, and even lowers your IQ. Things like texting while studying or watching TV while working on a paper can have a huge effect on your academic success, so next time you’re tempted to multitask while doing schoolwork, remember that if you really want to get something done right, multitasking is probably not your best route....

[Geez, I guess Mom was right. Pay attention! - JD]