Old School?

My mum used to hate it when she called my Uncle Alb on the phone and she could tell that he had one eye on the television and wasn't really paying attention to the conversation. Similarly, I was in a meeting the other day and was amazed by the lack of attention given to the presenter (not me, thankfully). Everyone around the table had their laptops out and was eyes-down, busily typing away at email. I felt quite sorry for the presenter; he had put a lot of effort into the presentation, yet we apparently couldn't commit one hour of our undivided attention to the meeting.

I've been meaning to write a blog about how personal convenience seems to have taken priority over good manners in business today. Ploughing through email seems to be more important than listening to the people in the same room. But then, talking to one of my colleagues today, I suddenly realized that maybe I'm just old.

We were talking about how students these days don't take notes in lectures because they don't have to; all coursework and notes are available for download from the Web. Instead, they sit behind their laptops and surf the Internet or IM with friends. In my day, we were frantically scribbling to get everything down. There was nothing else to do in lectures apart from sleep (of course we used to do that too). When I wrote my 10,000 word dissertation, I wrote it by hand and had to pay someone to type it up for me. Unbelievable, I know.

What's my point? That younger generations who grew up with computers probably don't consider it so rude to type away during meetings. That even though they are surfing and IMing, they are still actually listening to what's being said. The so-called ADD generation is used to being bombarded with images and information from all directions and is in fact far more skilled at multitasking than people my age.

Darn it! When did I become old school?