10-15 years ago, when laptops were just getting realistically portable, or when we still relied primarily on desktop computers, would we really have acted like this? How silly would it look to have an entertainment center with TV on adjacent to the desktop computer work station, both screens on and delivering information and input into your face? Yet today, it's commonplace for anyone sitting in front of a TV to have one or more of their laptop, tablet, and/or phone in use while the television blathers on "in the background."
I've become a lot more aware of my defaulting to multi-tasking, or multi-media-ing. I try to sort through the situations in which I default to it and really decide if I'm overloading myself or if it's fine and innocuous. Sitting down to check sports, news, social media, and email and pop on the TV? Too much. Setting up The Simpsons on my iPad while I cook dinner? Perfectly fine. Taking out my iPad to tool around while the live sporting event I sat down to watch is in action? Too much. Firing up ESPN Radio or NPR at my desk at work? Fine.
So far, I don't really have a clear sense of the reasons why I feel like it's more ok some times than others. Starting from instinct, I kind of ask, "is there any reason to have both going?" When my butt's on my couch at home, it's silly to put on ESPN since half or so of my internet dabblings will give me the same (or better) news and analysis the TV will provide. When I'm cooking, most of the time, I'm going off time-tested recipes and routine, so I'm not really focused on intricacies and enjoy the light-heartedness and humor of a funny show while I complete meal prep.
I think, for me, what it comes down to is whether or not I have a task at hand that demands, merits, or invites greater focus. What's the point of going through my go-to sites for stories to read if I'm only skimming them while listening to the TV and opening more tabs to stories I'm going to half-read? Why make a point of sitting down to a live sporting event if I'm going to compulsively check my email or social media feeds during the live action? I'm trying to be more conscious about reading stories through to their full conclusion instead of anxiously rushing to get to the next tab. I'm trying to leave my iPad closed until commercial breaks or at least until intermissions and halftimes.
And I see it in my peers, too. As a non-subscriber to Netflix, I remember being extremely jarred the first time I witnessed a friend put on a long-running comedy they said they were catching up on, only to find that they just let it play in auto-play while reading and doing other things. While sitting around the other day, two friends and I had completely tuned out the TV until I noticed a marginal college basketball game that none of us cared about was blaring on in the background - white noise to our overloaded senses.
And I think looking at the effect that multi-tasking has had on me shows me that the threshold for what gets one's full attention is getting super high.
DVR, streaming services, and pirate sites have made TV a bit too accessible; whereas before it was appointment viewing, now we take highly for granted the opportunity to watch a desired show. The proliferation of WiFi, hotspots, and cellular data has made the internet ubiquitous, and now we search for an endless stream of apps, games, and bookmarks to give us a steady inflow of material to scour all day long. The ever sleeker, thinner, higher-battery-life laptops, tablets, and smartphones allow us to perpetuate this plugged-in mode anytime, anyplace.
Rarely do we ever find ourselves anymore in a situation where we simply have to let whatever is going on around us be the focus of our attention. It used to be that these behaviors were reserved for waiting rooms, when you'd pick up a magazine and read whatever was there since you were held captive by the appointment slate behind the reception desk.
Now, we take the waiting-room mentality everywhere we go. We do the modern technological equivalent of magazine-reading-in-a-waiting room every time we get a chance, even when we're in a colorful scene outside, in the midst of watching a show we specifically put on, or even if we're in the company of friends.
We default heavily toward needing to personalize all aspects of what garners our attention, and it makes it difficult for anything to break into our preference shield. Basically, are we willing to take in the world around us? Are we willing to give a teacher our attention, on the chance that we might learn something unexpected? Are we willing to wait an hour, a half hour, even five minutes to refresh our social media feeds while paying attention to something outside our control?
Why am I attempting this scattered rant on a spirituality blog? This is a dangerous trend for our faith and spirituality.
People have always complained about Mass as being long and boring, but how much worse could that aversion get in this culture? Can people go 60 minutes? Will believers give the Scripture lections any attention? Will we pre-tune-out priests' homilies even worse than before? Will we slog through the Eucharistic prayer knowing it's the last part before we can bust our phones back out?
Can we sustain personal prayer with our hands empty and our devices more than arm's length away? Will we leave God enough open-ended-ness in our thought processes to speak to us?
Computers thrive on Random Access Memory (RAM), their ability to run multiple applications and keep the user's activity steady. I think it's a good thing for humanity to use, maximize, and increase its RAM. It enables us to maximize our gifts and talents to create, innovate, and serve one another. But more isn't always better. If we each have 8GB of RAM running through our brains and hearts, we have to be equally able to distribute our RAM across various tasks at once and to be able to focus our RAM on one particular task.
I'm trying harder to turn the TV off when I'm on my computer, to leave my iPad aside while I'm watching a show or game I made time to watch, and to embrace opportunities to focus 100% of my tasking on one thing, like writing a blog post or doing Sunday Mass.
Do you have enough space in your brain to give God and others the attention they deserve? Are you too busy watching Netflix while you surf Twitter and listen to music? What good is our multi-tasking ability if we can laugh at a TV show while texting friends and surfing the web but can't choose moments to focus all of it on our God who loves us?
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