Author : Bob Lim
In his latest book Crazy Busy, Dr. Edward M. Hollowell, a psychiatrist and expert in Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), talks about a phenomenon he began to notice in the mid 1990s-a dramatic increase in people visiting him exhibiting symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).Attention Deficit Disorder can be characterized by a person's inability to concentrate or to think for a period of time, primarily because the person cannot focus on a single task at hand. ADD sufferers are easily distracted, cannot filter information well, typically have high anxiety levels, and are often extremely forgetful.People with ADD typically rush around a lot, feel impatient wherever they are, love speed, get frustrated easily, lose focus in the middle of tasks, and struggle to pay attention to one issue for even more than a few seconds.Hollowell's major theme in the book is that the modern world is so "crazybusy" (his coinage) with its increased demands for ever more speed and stimulation that it is causing more and more otherwise normal people to suffer ADD symptoms. By trying to keep up with the pace of modern society, more and more people suffer from distractibility, inability to filter information, forgetfulness, high anxiety, and a host of other symptoms that are characteristics of ADD. People enter what he refers to as the "F state" becoming frenzied, fearful, forgetful, and sometimes furious.He thinks that these symptoms, once applicable to only a special population, are now found in just about everyone, at one time or another., and that perhaps our entire society is suffering from culturally induced Attention Deficit Disorder, and that being crazybusy has become a national epidemic.When I thought about what he had to say in his book, I recalled some examples of how people that I observed in everyday life seemed to engage in multitasking to the point of craziness, at least as far as I was concerned. To me it seemed that some people often seemed to lose the ability to focus on a single task and to concentrate on that task to its completion before starting a new task. Whenever I interacted with these crazybusy people, engaged in their multitasking, it was as though I could never act or reply fast enough to communicate with them. They were always doing or saying the next thing while I was still focused on what they had already done or said a split second ago.I think that these constant multitasking crazybusy people can be found everywhere - never having enough tasks to do at once, busy little bees always needing the adrenaline rush of another task to complete or another conversation to finish.One morning, as I was sitting on the bus , I happened to glance out the window and saw a young woman driving a large SUV in the next lane. She reminded me of the consummate crazybusy multitasker, striving to cram every available moment of her existence with a never ending series of tasks to be accomplished nonstop.I couldn't help but to remain transfixed as I stared out the window. I looked on in amazement as she grasped at a McDonald's Egg McMuffin with one hand, shouted out commands to someone on her cell phone, occasionally glanced in the mirror to check her eye makeup, and routinely monitored the GPS indicator on her dashboard -- all while navigating a 6,000 pound SUV through early morning bumper-to-bumper traffic.Staring out the window of the bus, I was thankful that I was in the lane next to hers, safely nestled in a larger cocoon of metal and steel than she was. It was then that I began to notice that she was far from being alone in her crazybusy multitasking -- she had plenty of company in the surrounding traffic. The guy driving an SUV just in front of her was glancing at his mail, drinking coffee, munching on a doughnut, and yelling at his kids seated in the backseat - all while trying to keep at least a part of his concentration focused on the other vehicles around him.When I got off the bus, I decided to stop off at a local park. I wanted to enjoy a few minutes of relaxation in the morning sun since I had a few minutes to kill before an appointment. Glancing around, I noticed more rampant examples of crazybusy multitasking here in the park. As I sat down and looked around, I saw a jogger simultaneously talking on his cell phone and fiddling with his Palm Pilot while he ran, trying to keep from becoming entangled in the leash affixed to his wrist, as his poor dog panted, running behind him. I also saw a few people talking to themselves as they walked or jogged, or at least I thought they were talking to themselves, until, as they approached, I was able to make out the ear pods they wore, and hear snippets of their cell phone conversations.I guess that walking without using a cell phone to multitask has become too boring of an activity for many people, unless they are able to engage in a never ending series of multitasking activities. On my walks, I constantly have to steer clear of these multitasking crazybusy people engaged in all varieties of cell phone chats. As I shift to avoid collisions with them, I hear some barking out orders to subordinates, while I hear others speaking deferentially to supervisors or clients, while still others are engaged in loud arguments with girlfriends or boyfriends, gesticulating and screaming as passerby look on, usually amused. But most of the time I detect partial conversations of banal senseless chatter that seem like a waste of a good cell phone, and nothing more than a terrible annoyance to anyone who happens to be within earshot.Ten years ago, before the cell phone multitasking mania, these people would have been considered certifiably crazy, or at a minimum, very eccentric to say the least. Talking to themselves, making gestures with their hands in the air, shouting or screaming as they startled passerby and bystanders, one and all, these were not behaviors that normal people engaged in. Oh, but how times have changed!Today people who display this sort of behavior are just considered more of the crazybody multitasking multitudes.Bob Lim has joined the struggle against the incorporation of the world into the corporate alien fold. From time to time he will give our website www.corporate-aliens.com his perspective on this growing problem.This article is © Bob Lim. All usage of this article must include a citation to the author and a link to corporate-aliens.com.
Keyword : stress, workaholic
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