No Time for Deep Thought
23 March 2006
In the new issue of TIME that came out Sunday, March 19th, the cover story is an article titled The Multitasking Generation and it makes a few interesting observations about kids today. Of course, anything to use such a clichéd term like “kids today” is often seen immediately as adults complaining, usually about being out of touch, and usually (lately) in regards to technology. And there’s certainly an element of that to this article, but it would be a mistake to focus on it solely.
The gist is this: by constantly engaging in some form of multitasking—usually with the help of some form of newish technology—kids and teenagers are being conditioned to never give their full attention to any one thing. In short, young people are not learning how to concentrate, how to focus, or how to Think Deeply about anything.
What? Thinking Deeply is not something to be learned? It has to do with innate intelligence and one’s disposition? Bollocks.
Thinking Deeply is more than just looking beyond the obvious or thinking about something for an extended amount of time. Of course, we know that. Deep Thought usually produces, when successful, some kind of revelation, insight, epiphany, or otherwise creative or original view on the thing being studied. This, as far as I know, is not being argued. What I take issue with is the idea that there are people who are Deep Thinkers and those who are Not Deep Thinkers, as if we’re genetically stamped either with or without this ability.
When put this way, this really should sound silly. Of course intelligence plays a role, but only in regards to the outcome, not in one’s very ability to actually engage in the activity. I don’t have the native ability to run very fast or jump very high, but that doesn’t mean that, given a lot hard work and practice, I couldn’t become a decent basketball player. No, I’d never be good enough to play professionally, but that’s not what we’re talking about here, is it?
The thing is, when it comes to pursuits of the mind, especially as it applies to the creative process1, that’s exactly the kind of thing we are talking about. Notice, people often believe they are either born Writers or Not Writers (coming from my experience as a teacher of writing). People can either Cook or Not Cook, Sing or Not Sing, and on and on the list goes. The problem with this way of thinking is not one of ability, but of how we value the results, as if what is produced is only “good enough” or “worthy” when it is of exceptionally high, or professional, quality. If it is of this quality, then it is either “Art”—and inherently beneficial to society—or something at which you can make money, which is, sadly, largely how we measure our (and others’) worth. If you cannot perform these pursuits of the mind at this standard, if you do not produce some product which society deems worthy, then clearly, the thinking seems to go, you’re wasting your (and others’) time.
But we don’t think this way about other things, though, and that’s the rub. To go back to my basketball analogy, if we thought of our active lives the same way we think of our mental lives, there would be no pick-up games, no need for open gyms, and no 3-on-3 tournaments to raise money for charity. There would be nothing except professional basketball and whatever served that end (i.e. college basketball, basketball academies, etc.). But we don’t think that way about sports, likely because even recreational sports, while not making either money or Art, do produce an increased level of physical fitness, which is something society says is a worthy use of our time, provided we fit it in around our other responsibility, making money.
And here’s the problem: doing what needs to be done to learn how to Think Deeply doesn’t produce any empirical, tangible side-effects. Sure, you develop an increased level of mental fitness, but that is not something very easily identified or measured. If you are physically fit, all the world can see it for themselves. Mental fitness? Well, we don’t live in a world where it’s polite to even speak of such things, do we? We have no problem comparing the physical attributes of Tom, Dick, and Harry, but if we even begin to suggest that there’s some value in comparing their mental attributes, well, that’s just wrong, now isn’t it? It might make someone feel bad, might give them the impression they really can’t make of their life whatever they want, and if that thought takes hold then the American Dream gets flushed down the toilet.
Of course, in reality the American Dream is the Nutri-System of social philosophies: extraordinary examples are trotted out to give us all hope and everyone ignores the “results not typical” fine print. And even if we don’t ignore the fine print, none of us wants to believe they actually mean us. I mean, that would make me typical, which is to say average, and we all know no one in the US is average, right? We’re all special, unique, and predestined for greatness in our own special, unique way. Just like everyone else.
But the warm and fuzzy feel-good message is wearing thin. We’re more cynical, more jaded, and a less blindly optimistic nation than we were even a decade ago. We know the secret to our success is kicking the ever-loving crap out of those who would have our success for themselves, and for that we need an edge, an ace up our sleeves, or maybe just more cocaine. Or steroids. Or multi-function Phone/PDA/MP3 player/Playstation Portable/Intravenous-caffeine-delivery tools. All we need is a cool gadget belt like Batman. Then we too could be super-heroes.
And here’s where we come all the way ‘round, back to the whole multitasking issue. For the Gen-M crowd, the secret is more. Do more, have more, be more. But no one has yet figured out how to add more hours to the day, so multitasking is obviously the way to go, right? Certainly giving some of your attention to a great many things simultaneously is better than wasting all of your attention on just one thing, right? And this is where technology comes into play: cell phones, PDAs, computers, broadband internet, all of it lets you get things done quicker2 and, more and more often, allows you to bring tasks to you (or with you) rather than you having to go to them. Do more, have more, be more, right?
But what about quality? Through all of this, it’s the question of quality that keeps coming back to me. Again, I’m not talking about results here as much as I am effort, quality effort. With all the focus on Getting To Done as quickly as possible—and preferably in simultaneous multiples—it seems we’ve thrown quality under the bus for the sake of speed. It’s like the old business cliché, “It can be done right, done quickly, and done on budget. Now choose the two you want, because you can’t have all three.” It seems to me that culturally and socially, here in the land of the almighty dollar, we’ve stopped thinking about this as a choice and simply adopted the two-pronged attack of “quickly and on budget” as the default. And it’s easier that way, right? No messy decision-making to get in the way, no risk of choosing poorly and ( gasp! ) having to take responsibility for that choice. Add to that the growing belief that such hard-to-measure qualities like effort, creativity, and integrity are not to be judged or even examined to closely (remember, we’re all special, we’re all unique), and we’re back to the beginning: it’s all about results, and the quality of those results as they’re measured against the Calvinistic and Puritanical criteria to which our country has so long adhered. There’s no time for Deep Thought if you’re Getting Things Done.
1 I speak of the creative process in a broad sense, perhaps the truest sense, as a situation where one creates something where nothing had been before. In this regard, we are not just talking about what is commonly referred to as “Art,” but anything truly generative, i.e. cooking, decorating, writing, crafts, etc. “Art” and “Creative” are too often capitalized as a way of stratifying and assigning value to what has been created, encouraging us to value only what is either “useful” or of such “quality” and “skill” (who defines these terms, anyway?) as to be deemed socially or culturally useful by its very existence.
2 Of course this is only true if you know what you’re doing and if the technology in question is working properly, and even then there are still some tasks (making a To Do list, anyone?) for which we still haven’t found a more efficient method than the ol’ pen and paper. Though I suppose we could consider a pen as technology…
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