I stumbled across this Tweet by Tony Robbins and got hooked. Well, OK, I sighed at first when I realized that his “quick read” was (I guess unintentionally) meant to be a joke, but the article by the New York Times he linked was interesting enough to make me read all 5 pages of it.

The article describes the heavy effect of digital media and gadgets on Mr. Campell and his family. I guess most of you can more or less – in my case: more – relate to Mr. Campell. I have found myself in a couple of situations where I wanted to finish something quickly, but “got lost on the internet”. Heck, a friend of mine (PJ) could relate so much to a story I told him, he came up with the title “net lock” for this phenomenon. You can lose a lot of productivity when you’re constantly multitasking between several programs that are all running on your computer or can’t stop switching between tabs in your browser (Facebook tab, I hate you!).

While I don’t consider myself to be as extreme as Mr. Campell (I draw the line at the iPad – it’s a waste of money in my opinion as it doesn’t do anything that I can’t do with my laptop. Further, I can’t create with it; for me, it’s a tool to consume and I don’t need another tool to do that; however, I’ll purchase it with my lockerz points one day! If you need an invite, hook me up!), I’m still affected heavily by the effects that are described in the article. Just now, I wanted to do something else (this article was meant to be finished by 9 pm, it’s 9:40 right now – I got involved in a longer ICQ conversation with a friend). As you can see in the screenshots, my test results weren’t that bad – especially for a “heavy multitasker”, but I guess I could still do better.

What are your thoughts? Do you consider yourself a “heavy multitasker”, do you see the effects on your daily life (especially when you’re separated from all the digital media) and what’s up next in the future? I’m really looking forward to all your input! Oh, and try the interactive tests in the article and compare results with me!

P.S.: Be my guest and make use of the Facebook comment function that I recently added to this page! I would love to see it put to use.