Well, what should I do now? We’ve got so many gadgets, I probably should learn how to use them.

I don’t know how we got into this fix. We used to call people and just chat about things. Now we call them and leave a message on their cell phone.

More then 1,000 folks visited emergency rooms in 2008 because they fell down or ran into a wall while using their cell phone. Everyone has one now. It’s getting to the point where we can’t walk down the street without hearing the phones.

When I go into the grocery these days, I hear folks calling home to decide what to buy. “Maybe I’ll buy these bananas?” they say. “What do you think?”

I stopped at the dry cleaners a couple of months back and noticed a sign on the counter stating: Please don’t talk on your cell phone here.

When the clerk came to the desk carrying my shirts, I told her, “I’m happy to see that sign. People are so involved with talking, they can’t hang up their phones.”

“That’s certainly true here,” she said. “We’ve had customers who walk in and start making calls. Some talked so much, the others were waiting.” She said a woman answered her phone while the clerk stood at the desk. The next customer had to wait just to see what would happen.

My newspaper calls that “multitasking.” A study at Stanford University proved students who do several things at once often can’t tell what they’re doing.

Stanford researchers were shocked to see how this works. They found that students who liked multitasking the most did it the worst. This is the opposite of what we would expect.
One professor wondered, “Is multitasking causing them to be lousy at it, or is their lousiness at multitasking causing them to be multitaskers?”

These researchers gave students a form asking how many types of media they used at one time. Elements such as televisions, computer-based video, music, telephone, print and computer games were included. Results averaged about 1.5 media at a time for those on the low end, while heavy users scored more than 4.
That’s when researchers learned multitaskers have trouble switching. These people can’t decide what’s important. They can’t organize things, and they won’t ignore stuff they don’t need.

Some states have found that folks with cell phones in their car can’t leave them alone. This is a distraction that causes car crashes. They’ve found that folks talking on the phone have trouble walking, too. They bump into trucks that are parked in the driveway.
Researchers say multitaskers are easily distracted. They always want more information – but they don’t know how to use it.

Readers with questions or comments for Roger Pond may write to him in care of this publication.