The Multitasking Generation: A Comparative Analysis

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The world is shrinking and the networks are growing at an unprecedented rate. This is possible because of our technological advances in recent decades – especially computer and networking technologies. The Internet changed the way we connect and communicate with others; it made dissipating information as easy as clicking a button. The advent of social media coupled with the powerful mobile networks and devices have enabled us to be connected twenty four seven. But this always-on connectedness is not without its downsides, it has come to a point it’s being counterproductive. Two essays, Sherry Turkle’s “The Flight from Conversation” and Claudia Wallis’s “The Multitasking Generation” in the text “Reading Critically, Writing Well”, shed light on how these technological advancements are affecting us wholesomely - the way we communicate, the way we perceive our identities and the way we live our lives. …show more content…

Turkle and Wallis both deal with some counter points against their arguments. Trukle is a little short both in supporting her assumptions and dealing with counterpoints. She assumes, “We are tempted to believe our little sips of online connection to turn into one big gulp of real conversation” but gives little to support that assumption (p 335). After all human civilization has been mostly in little ‘sips’, which has added up to this big gulp now. She quotes Shakespeare “Shakespeare might have said, “We are consumed with that which we were nourished by”” to make the point that all these gadgets are making us dumber (p 336). Wallis counters the argument of “Although such habits may prepare kids for today’s frenzied workplace, many cognitive scientists are positively alarmed by the trend” by quoting researches and specialists in the fields like Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institute of Neu-rological Disorders and Stroke (p

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