A Glossary for Netizens!

The Jan 16, 2006 edition of TIME has several interesting articles that makes it worth having in the collection. Some of the issues that it has concentrated this time around, includes the cultural dilemma faced by the many cross-culture breeds and more so, the Asian Americans; the recent scandal to rock the White House in the form of Jack Abramoff, and more importantly a series of articles based on some recent findings about the human brain and its effective utilization.

Of interest here is the last one. The growing techno-savviness, the rat race, and the urge to stay way ahead of everyone has, as the articles claim, begun to take a heavy toll on the power of our brains. Rather than enabling us to utilize the brain even more, such heavy gadgety trend has made us alarmingly dependent on the machines and hence even as our productivity is on a decline, various forms of disorders are on the rise. With this bird-view, I would leave it to the interests of my readers to either pursue and find out more, or else just ignore this post! (Oh! Well.. yet another on the list!).

For those of you, who continued to read on.. one of the articles concentrated on the issue of "Multi-tasking". This caught my attention because, I do a lot of this. Even as I am typing out my blog on my office computer, I have a program being executed on my laptop, a messenger running, a conversation over the cell phone, and not to forget the intermediate visits by my colleagues and supervisors..... oops.. just remembered something, lemme jot it down real quick on this stick pad, right next to me! I too like many others am deluged to think that I am being more productive, the article nevertheless begs to differ! This overt increase in the quantity of work, on the longer run seems to deteriorate the quality of the same!!

Well, it also lists a glossary of terms that have been introduced to funkily name our little "idiosyncracy" (as I would like it to be called.. rather than a compulsive disorder). I am sure, a lot of you out there, would be amazed to identify yourselves with them.

1. Screen Sucking:- Wasting time online long after you have finished what you signed on to do.
2. Frazzing:- Frantic, ineffective multitasking, typically with the delusion that you are getting a lot done. The quality of the work, however, is poor. (Thankfully, I feel I am at a stage where I can retract and revamp myself)
3. Pizzled:- How you feel when someone you are with pulls out a cell phone or Blackberry and uses it without an apology or explanation. A cross between pissed off and puzzled! (A lot of my friends were though.. and well heck! am not even picking up my cell phone now! Phew!)
4. Doomdart:- The internal distraction of a forgotten task that pops into your mind when you are doing something else. A side of frazzing.

Well all of these were taken from the article in the TIME magazine. It has in turn borrowed the same from a forthcoming book, CrazyBusy:Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap - Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD (Ballantine Books; 246 Pages) authored by psychiatrist Edward Hallowell.