Cutting through today's multi-media-sensory-hyper-info layer cake is the concern (mostly from stodgier quarters) that we are becoming a culture of distraction. Multiple email accounts, social networks, means of entertainment whether mobile or stadium-sized -- finding the calm center is all but impossible. But is that a bad thing? New York magazine writer Sam Anderson suggests that it's not.

To quote:

"This doomsaying strikes me as silly for two reasons. First, conservative social critics have been blowing the apocalyptic bugle at every large-scale tech-driven social change since Socrates’ famous complaint about the memory-destroying properties of that newfangled technology called “writing.” (A complaint we remember, not incidentally, because it was written down.) And, more practically, the virtual horse has already left the digital barn. It’s too late to just retreat to a quieter time. Our jobs depend on connectivity. Our pleasure-cycles—no trivial matter—are increasingly tied to it. Information rains down faster and thicker every day, and there are plenty of non-moronic reasons for it to do so. The question, now, is how successfully we can adapt."

Also worth noting: The myth of multi-tasking is finally put down. Rest in peace.

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