Something of what I was trying to say at the end of class today didn't quite get through, probably because I didn't say it. Once we have recognized the fact that new media have (already!) changed the way we structure the world outside of our computer screens, I think we have to ask ourselves whether that development is an improvement.

I'm open to ideas, but I personally see a lot of advantages to "uni-tasking." It just doesn't seem possible to live fully in the present if you're engaged in multiple forms of media at the same time. Whenever I have too many windows open on my computer, I feel as though I've lost myself. After I log off, I have the sense of just waking up: "It's been three hours? Really? Where did all that time go? What have I been doing?"

I think that in order to be happy, we have to impose a logical, sequential narrative on our lives, even if the narrative doesn't fit. Remember how hard you tried to assign a single narrative to Manovich's database video? This whole debate gets back to that. We can't structure our realities as databases. It's too depressing. And I think that the extension of multi-tasking into our "real" lives represents a trend toward that structure. What's the narrative relationship between your cell phone conversation and the place you're in? Between the song you're listening to and the people you're passing by?