Pay attention?!

This is not really news: We computer users (and our children) have never had more distractions. "In the era of email, instant messaging, Googling, e-commerce, and iTunes, potential distractions while seated at a computer are not only ever-present but very enticing," reports the New York Times. The problem is, we can do so much more than fix a sandwich or sharpen pencils. Now we can remix a song, send baby pix, carry on multiple simultaneous conversations, and check the weather from four different sources on one's desktop - all at once, of course. This still amazes me. The good news is, "a growing number of computer scientists and psychologists are studying the problem of diminished attention." Not all, it seems, view it so much a problem as a reality. "And some are beginning to work on solutions." For example, "one piece of software in development learns to assign a level of urgency to incoming email messages while shielding people from messages they can see later - based on an assessment of how busy they are." What a relief! ;-)