« Switching to a Mac - First Impressions and Adjustments | Home | The Traveling Gadget Bag »
How Many Gadgets Do You Juggle?
By Dave Peterson | April 1, 2008
It’s an interesting phenomenon when you start using multiple devices to interact simultaneously with the Internet (or even other shared resources within your own network). I sure didn’t set out to do this, but I find that I’m doing it more and more, recently. One example is my transitional state, as I move from a PC to a Mac. While doing this, it’s often necessary to juggle both machines as I move things like e-mail or the iTunes library from one to the other. If I’ve got two laptops open in front of me, it begins to seem reasonable to simultaneously run a browser on each. Maybe I’m following Twitter on one, while running down the answer to a technical problem on another, then going back to the first to try a possible solution to the problem when I think I’ve found the answer. Sometimes I’ll be registering as a web site user on one machine, the site sends a confirmation to my e-mail client on the other machine, which I click through, then I decide which machine I want to continue browsing on. If I’m at work, I may have this same scenario, but with my iPhone substituting for one of the machines, because I’m registering with my personal e-mail (which shows up on my phone) rather than my work e-mail. Strangely, this only gets confusing if you stop to think about it.
It makes me wonder if having a multi-device lifestyle begins to change the way we think. It’s not quite like real-world multi-tasking where you might be doing several distinctly different things simultaneously; in the multi-device scenario, you might be doing a single task, or doing several very similar tasks, but across multiple system contexts. And in some cases, this means mentally juggling different input techniques as you work between the different devices. Again, it’s only confusing when you realize you’re doing it. Or, maybe this is just an unavoidable side-effect of being exposed to too much GeekBrief.TV?
Topics: Uncategorized |
April 9th, 2008 at 8:15 pm
For a moment I thought you were asking how many gadgets I carry… The count is down at the moment as I seek to acquire new gadgets….but I’m still visible as the guy walking around wearing the e-holster (Space Pen, Digital Camera and Blackberry….used to have a PDA with the Blackberry on my belt, but I’ve been looking for some kind of WiFi/PMP handheld….) on the belt just a Motorola KRZR and my badge leash. Leave the pager at home now.
Meanwhile…I’ve been thinking that I have too many computers…. Too much work keeping the different environments consistently customized….like find a cool firefox extension…then have to go and update all the other firefox browsers to have it. Become active on twitter….need to get twitter clients and such on all of the other computers.
Oh wait…I can only link one IM account with twitter, but I have IM clients everywhere….
sad