SIDEWALK CHALK: Busy students multitask as a new way of life today

Oprah calls it multitasking - doing many tasks at once. It's an everyday vocabulary word nowadays. I know that my friends and I find ourselves doing several things at once all the time. It's what we have to do to keep up with work and school. Free time is nonexistent to me if I don't do several things at once.

College students multitask during the day all the time. If you don't believe me, sit outside and count the number of students walking to class and talking on their phone, or count how many students you see with an iPod in one hand as they select a song while text messaging a friend on a cell phone in their other hand. It's rare to see a student just walking to class.

We multitask in our cars too. We change CD's while swapping lanes. We drive with one hand while text messaging with the other. I used to be notorious in high school for putting on mascara while driving to school, or to anywhere in general. Of course, this stopped after my dad told me that one of those days, I was going to wreck my car and the EMT's were going to pull me out of my car with a mascara wand jammed into my eye. That mental image alone was enough to make me stick to lipstick application only.

Where's the line between multitasking and plain old stupidity?

Following my best friend, Kellie, to her house last weekend, I found myself driving on I-69, a few miles from the 96th street exit in Indy with a minivan on my right. Glancing over, because it's what you do when people are passing you or driving side by side (admit it - you've all done it, only you turn your head back quickly so that you don't look like you're looking), I see inside this van a young boy in the front seat, watching the movie screen that had been mounted to the dashboard. In the backseat, I see three car seats, a kid in each seat, another kid sitting in the backseat, and the mom in the driver's seat who's not using her hands to steer.

And why isn't she using her hands? Because she's too busy pinning her cell phone to her ear while using her T-Mobile Sidekick to text someone.

She caught me looking at her, the multitasking mom, and gave me a look as I laughed out loud. I mean, I couldn't do much but laugh at the stupidity of this woman. I guess it'd be one thing, if you were doing all that and you were the only one in the vehicle, but there were several kids in the van. I know that when I have kids in my car, as I frequently baby sit due to my lack of a social life, I've got two hands on the wheel at ten and two and I don't care if my cell phone rings - I'll answer it once I park my car.

Talking and driving is the most you'll ever find me doing in the car, nowadays. I don't want to sound like I never do too much at once, especially while driving, because there are days when it happens. We're all busy. We live in an age where we try to cram as much as possible, and sometimes impossible, into a 24-hour day. But the next time you're driving and you remember a funny conversation, you feel the need to text to your best friend, but you have to do that while changing the CD in your car because you're no longer in the mood to listen to Dave Matthews, do the world a favor and pull over first.


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