Today of course is the first day of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference -- another Steve Jobs love fest during which he trots out the latest life-altering technology for his fanboys to drool over.
But before I get into that, I want to talk about yesterday's New York Times Website, which has an entire series of articles about how technology is rewiring our brains, and not in a good way.
[ Also on InfoWorld: Addicted to tech? You can always quit Facebook, Cringely suggests. | Stay up to date on all Robert X. Cringely's observations with InfoWorld's Notes from the Underground newsletter. ]
Apparently, technology overload ruins your ability to concentrate and causes you to repeat yourself. It also ruins your ability to concentrate and causes you to repeat yourself.
I think I read that somewhere.
The more technology you consume, the more you multitask, the more gadgets you own and use, the more email/facebook/Twitter/text messages you manage, and the more you multitask, the more your brain begins to resemble a finely aged hunk of Swiss cheese -- or so says the Times.
All I can say is, thank God. I thought it was all that Lemon Pledge I'd huffed in college. Instead, it's information/gizmo overload. In other words, my brain problems are something I might be able to file a Worker's Comp claim for.
According to the Times:
In 2008, people consumed three times as much information each day as they did in 1960. And they are constantly shifting their attention. Computer users at work change windows or check e-mail or other programs nearly 37 times an hour, new research shows.
Fascinating, no? Hang on a sec while I tweet that out to my peeps. Hey, I'm the 66th person to recommend this story, and it looks like I have a few new Direct Messages. Did you know you could make thousands of dollars of passive income on Twitter in your spare time? I want me some of that.
Where was I? Oh yeah.
