That's What She Said: Many-Handed
- Dawn Dumont | November 13, 2013
As I'm typing this, I'm listening to the T.V., straightening my hair, texting two friends and have twelve Internet browsers open, all while my dog is chewing on my feet (it hurts but his canines act as a natural pumice stone and save me money on pedicures.) When I’m unwinding, I never limit myself to one way of relaxing. While watching The Walking Dead, I’m also on my computer on Twitter, Internet-screaming with all the other fans about why can’t Rick make out with Michonne already? How come Darryl shoots zombies and deer with the same arrows? Does he clean those arrows with Purell? And also, why can't handsome, crazy Shane come back to life?
Multi-tasking is normal for people in my generation, in fact I can only do five things at once while my friends with kids usually do sixteen. I've witnessed a girlfriend make dinner, talk on the phone, help her kids with their homework, apply for grad school, defrost the freezer, install a new SIM card, fix the dishwasher, set the table all while yelling at her husband to get off his ass to help her – oh and also while getting the high score on Candy Crush. (What is Candy Crush and why is everyone's mom on it?)
Our multi-tasking skills are being passed down to the next generation. I'm more familiar with the sight of a kid watching TV with a laptop perched between their bellies and chests than not. The first thing my five year old niece asks when I see her is "can I use your phone?" And the first thing I say to her is, "get a job, punk." I've noticed children as young as two years old having their own Facebook accounts. What kind of status updates will they have? "Woke up this morning covered in my own waste! Oh well, YOLO!"
I don't blame technology for this epidemic of split attention, because we have a natural human instinct to do everything at once. I'm pretty sure there was rampant multi-tasking even back in the teepee days. Even as our ancestors were chasing down a buffalo, they were noting the location of a particularly lush chokecherry bush along the way, the sound of the ducks passing overhead as well as gossiping to the next guy about how much fatter their friend Spotted Elk's rump had gotten since he married that third wife: "Probably stress-eating." (Little known fact – the best multi taskers were people from the Blood First Nation, hence the names Manyhands and Manyfingers.)
Even during the Sixties when our relatives were setting up new governments for us and asserting our rights on the national and international stage, they were also backcombing their prodigious Elvis Presley pompadours or Priscilla Presley bouffants, fighting for peace, bobbing their heads to a CCR song all while sweating through their polyester outfits (I'm guessing this from looking at pictures of my parents.) I don't even want to imagine how lively it smelled back then at a social dance.
Then in the Eighties multi-tasking really took off because of the introduction of new technology. People practised their moon walks while they watched MuchMusic, ate lava-hot pizza pops fresh from their fancy microwaves, wiped their mouths with the back of their lace gloves and quoted lines from Caddyshack all at the same time. In those days, you wouldn't go for a walk without a giant ghetto blaster perched on your shoulder in case you missed a good song and a cellphone the size of loaf of bread in your pocket lest you missed a phone call from that one friend who also owned a cellphone.
Multi-tasking is human nature. Because no matter what we are doing, we're aware that the mortality clock is ticking – who wants to risk missing even a second of life?
People want to make the most of every moment, and they also want everyone to know they're making the most of it. They post a Facebook status telling you that they are going out to dinner with friends, then check in on Foursquare to show the location, then post pics of their meal on Instagram and then finally there's a Vine video of them choking on their steak because they were trying talk, eat and chew gum all at the same time.