I think kids who “grow up with” simply do not have predefined behavior for multitasking. They just accept multiple channels of communication and learn to use them all because they “have to”. Where as someone older has to “adapt” or redefine a certain behavior they had learned previously.

What the 16 yr old kid and 35 yr old marketing dude have in common is they both feel they “must” use these com channels, so they feel forced to learn. Where the kid needs to stay in the social and the guy needs to do his job. If they for some reason stopped using some of these com channels they would find themselves behind in their respective environments.

I’m just a developer and I have no formal psych education, so this may be just idiotic rambling.

Anyway, the questions you raise are really interesting ones and ones I’ve been grappling with for as long as I’ve been doing this new literacies research thing. I haven’t seen much research or even unsubstantiated theorizing about it, but the way my thinking is going these days is that the human brain is actually developed for multitasking etc and that modernity and our educational system has taught us to be linear and one track minded. I mean how many times do educators talk about “being on task” as the holy grail of classroom management. I admit I have no background in neuropsychology or cognitive psychology or any of that stuff, but I think it would be interesting to see a longitudinal study of how the executive functioning develops starting with young children and moving into adulthood. So, I’m wondering if the difference between those of us who can and cannot multitask is learned and that the new literacies is actually enabling our brains to function the way we originally evolved. It makes me think of Latour’s argument that “we have never been modern” and that modernity is a false veneer built on faulty logic.

Just babble here, no empirical evidence or research to back up my conjectures. Dissertation anyone?