NADD: Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder

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I just came across Michael Lopp's famous Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder article written back in 2003 that talked about the typical nerd's multitasking habit, and I have to say that I have to agree with his points.

Michael Lopp wrote:

Folks, this isn’t multi-tasking. This is advanced case of Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder. I am unable to function at my desktop unless I’ve got, at least, five things going on at the same time. If your count came close, you’re probably afflicted, as well. Most excellent.

On my [real] desk, I have Chapter 13: What's Behind the Music Industry's Woes? staring at me for over an hour now. I really like the subject matter and initally, I was very sure that I would finish this reading in no time, but alas, there was a link on a footnote that said:

Quote:

For more information on the Coke and KFC stories, see www.snopes.com/cokelore/formula.asp

So I go online, open the Snopes link on one tab, open my university email on another tab, personal email on another, forum email on yet another one, open the forum I help administrate on another tab, log on to a teamblog I blog at, click on some articles displayed on Wordpress' dashboard, have Yahoo! Messenger open, have the Wordpress.org codex open, another FTP client, open a PM that I should have replied to two days ago, a couple of people's blogs, RSS feeds I've subscribed to, and oh, while posting my first ever Frihost blog entry. All because I initially went online to check out that Snopes article.

You see, it's so easy to get distracted online. [Heck, not even online, I guess.] I am very guilty of this as well, and I bet that most of you are also afflicted with this "NADD".

My multitasking has gone from bad to worse. My "to-do" list has gotten longer in the process, as well. Instead of getting a three-page paper done in less than an hour, I end up wasting three to four hours online while getting distracted by doing "research". A messenger window pops up despite of my "Busy" status and I waste my time chatting away while flicking through a lot of my browser tabs until I realize that "oh!--Sorry to cut our conversation short, but I gotta go finish this!"

I'm trying to get rid of the habit, though. I plan on doing a personal "Shutdown Day" over the weekend. I'll keep this laptop in its case and perhaps ask my brother to hide it somewhere I won't likely to find. I'll ask him to hide the other one, too.

(via Photomatt)

PS: No, I haven't finished reading Chapter 13 yet.
PPS: A huge thanks to Bondings for creating this awesome feature! I'm loving it!



3 blog comments below

Very interesting blog post... made me think about my online habits as well. I don't have an advanced case of NADD, but I do think I do have a mild one.

tidruG on Thu Sep 13, 2007 7:04 pm

I think I have a moderate to advanced case of NADD. At least I had to enlarge the program menu (I mena the thing next to start on Windows) to be able to display all the open windows. And not to forget the usual collection of open tabs, sometimes even 2 browser windows are needed to display them all.

By the way, I'm glad you like the blogs.

Bondings on Thu Sep 13, 2007 7:26 pm

Thanks for writing this; makes me feel as I am not the only person in this world with these problems

Shewolf on Fri Sep 14, 2007 1:14 pm