More on multitasking

David Glenn of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports on the state of multitasking research:

"One of the deepest questions in this field," [Stanford professor Clifford I.] Nass says, "is whether media multitasking is driven by a desire for new information or by an avoidance of existing information. Are people in these settings multitasking because the other media are alluring—that is, they're really dying to play Freecell or read Facebook or shop on eBay—or is it just an aversion to the task at hand?"

When Nass was a high-school student, decades ago, his parents were fond of an old quotation from Sir Joshua Reynolds: "There is no expedient to which man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking." That is the conundrum that has animated much of his career.

"I don't think that law students in classrooms are sitting there thinking, Boy, I'd rather play Freecell than learn the law," Nass says. "I don't think that's the case. What happens is that there's a moment that comes when you say, Boy, I can do something really easy, or I can do something really hard."

I need to get started on a collection of didactic quotations for my children. And I need to do more hard things.

Eggs in booze

I crack a raw egg into a dark beer now and then. This makes me want to branch out into frothy-meringuey cocktails. And the salmonella risk is nil since our eggs are homegrown!