7.5. THE INTERNET GENERATION'S DISCONNECTIONS

Although the millennial generation's attitude seems to be the more stimulation the better, too much multitasking may actually prove harmful. It could be undermining critical concentration, reading, communication, and interpersonal skills. Some critics even consider the millennials' extreme multitasking a manifestation of attention deficit disorder and have labeled them the Ritalin Generation.

There's no question that some multitaskers have short attention spans and are easily distracted and bored. Although adroit multitasking might mean greater productivity on routine projects, it might not result in top-flight work for assignments that require focus, critical analysis, and deeper thinking. Employers should be alert to excessive multitasking and rein in employees who are overtaxing themselves. Clearly, everyone needs to unplug at times. "Despite their multitasking abilities, there is a limit to how many inputs the millennials can focus on at once," says Eric Lesser, the global business services executive at IBM. "There must be a balance between speed and attention."

Some researchers are putting multitasking to the test. Frequent distractions from the main task at hand appeared to hurt productivity in a study at Microsoft. Researchers observed a group of workers at the software company and found that it took them 10 to 15 minutes to return to their ongoing tasks of writing reports or computer code after being interrupted by electronic messages.

No matter how young they are, millennials may have only so much capacity for multitasking. A study at the University of Oregon concluded that the human brain simply isn't designed for extreme multitasking and that the average person can focus on only a few things at once. In laboratory experiments with young adults ranging in age from 18 to 30, professors found that the subjects could hold only four items in their active memory.

Another experiment even casts doubt on whether young people are more adept multitaskers than their elders. The Institute for the Future of the Mind at the University of Oxford tested the impact of interruptions from communication devices on mental performance. A group of 18- to 21-year-olds and a group of 35- to 39-year-olds were asked to perform a task that required a high level of concentration. The younger group did better when there was no interruption. But when the subjects were interrupted by a phone call, text message to a cell phone, or an instant message on a computer, the younger group lost its advantage over the older group, which wasn't fazed much by the intrusion.

An even more pressing question is whether technology overload and excessive multitasking are taking a toll on reading and writing skills. It's becoming an increasingly serious issue as more college professors find that millennials resist reading fulllength books because the tomes require too much sustained attention. In the face of such objections, some teachers are surrendering and assigning brief excerpts from books and short stories or articles. But many millennials don't even read short magazine and newspaper articles, preferring quick bits of information from the Internet instead. Some millennials also are playing video games rather than reading. Ironically, public libraries may be fueling that unfortunate trend by buying video games for young people to check out instead of books.

In a 2007 report, the National Endowment for the Arts concluded that Americans are spending less time reading and that reading comprehension skills are eroding. Millennials, in particular, are reading less than older adults. The report noted that the percentage of 18- to 24-year olds reading literature fell to 43% in 2002 from 60% in 1982.

The millennials' aversion to serious reading likely plays a part in its inferior writing skills. Employers are finding that this e-literate generation is barely literate in other forms of communication. They complain vehemently about young people's inability to compose a coherent, well-written memo. They find that millennials' writing is riddled with punctuation, grammar, and spelling errors, and it often lacks clarity, proper sentence structure, and logical organization. When trying to write persuasively, this generation is often at a loss to provide compelling arguments to support their thesis.

Employers gave millennials low marks for communication skills in a 2006 study titled "Are They Really Ready to Work?" that was produced by the Conference Board, Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Society for Human Resource Management. About 47% of the respondents rated graduates of two-year colleges as deficient in grammar and spelling and in writing memos, letters, and technical reports clearly and effectively. Slightly more than a quarter rated graduates of four-year colleges deficient in those areas. Not surprisingly, the employers awarded millennials in both two-year and four-year colleges the highest grades for information technology skills.

Colleges and employers blame teachers for neglecting to develop basic writing skills starting in elementary school, but they also see technology's insidious influence at work, too. "It seems that their communication has suffered as a result of having been brought up in a world of e-mail and text messaging where it's so much less formal and totally acceptable to abbreviate not only words but also concepts and ideas," says Bruce Moore, associate director of the career management center at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. "Thus, their cover letters and other correspondence are relatively flat and lacking in personality and warmth."

Teachers and employers find it especially maddening when the shorthand digital language of the millennial generation carries over to academic and business writing. Young people sometimes go so far as to use the numerals 2 and 4 in place of the words "to" and "for" in formal writing. In a survey by the Pew Research Center and the College Board's National Commission on Writing, half of the teenagers said they sometimes omit proper punctuation marks and capitalization in schoolwork; more than one-third use text shortcuts, such as LOL for "laugh out loud"; and 25% insert smiley face symbols and other emoticons.

Ernst & Young even gives its text-challenged managers a helpful reference guide for translating cryptic millennial shorthand into intelligible words. Now the accounting firm's managers have no excuse for not recognizing that FBM means "fine by me" and that XLNT is short for "excellent." (See the accompanying table for more text translations.)

Alison Brod, president and founder of a public relations and marketing agency in New York City, is puzzled by her young employees' abominable writing, given the top high schools and colleges that many have attended. "Eighty percent of the e-mails I get, with no exaggeration, have spelling or grammar errors from this group," she says. "No one knows the difference between 'its' and 'it's' or 'stationery' and 'stationary.' They capitalize in strange places within a sentence, and I have yet to meet one who knows how to do a proper outline." She once received a thank-you e-mail from an interviewee who couldn't be bothered to press the shift key. The e-mail contained such lines as "i enjoyed meeting you," and ruined any chances for a job offer.

Even worse, Brod says, millennials aren't the least bit embarrassed or apologetic. "They will tell me that they just don't understand contractions," she says. "If they get a proper noun wrong, rather than Google a name or state, their attitude is that it just doesn't matter, that it's close enough."

Besides developing bad habits from texting and instant messaging, millennials also rely too much on computer programs for checking their spelling and grammar. Before hiring millennials, recruiters should ask them to write an essay or memo by hand without any opportunity to make computer software checks.

John Challenger, CEO of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, advises college students to enroll in more business and technical writing courses, as well as creative writing and journalism classes. "History courses will also help students hone their writing skills, not to mention their critical thinking skills," he says. "Shortened syntax, incomplete sentences, and no punctuation may be acceptable for instant messaging between friends, but most offices require a much higher level of sophistication, even in e-mails between coworkers." His firm surveyed human resource executives and found that nearly half believe that entry-level job seekers lack adequate written communication abilities; more than a quarter also believe they need stronger critical thinking, interpersonal, and conflict-management skills.

Indeed, some educators and employers worry that the millennials' obsession with technology is robbing this generation of important interpersonal interactions and the development of social skills. Millennials usually prefer instant messaging to telephoning someone or walking over to a colleague's desk or a supervisor's office for a brief chat. But in such voice or face-to-face contacts, they would likely develop better listening and negotiation skills and stronger personal connections with their colleagues. Physical interactions also provide richer communication experiences as people read each other's body language and facial expressions.

Employers complain that they often must compete to get the attention of multitasking millennials, who aren't the best listeners, especially when they are plugged into iPods or other personal music players. In fact, there is clearly a generational conflict over iPods. Many managers consider them a sign of disrespect as well as inattentiveness. They say they have had to lay down the law and ban iPods from presentations, conferences, and other meetings.

Millennials insist that they can concentrate and multitask better listening to music or podcasts, but some managers believe they prevent employees from hearing what's going on around them. In reaction to their supervisors' griping, some millennials work with only one ear bud plugged in so that they aren't too isolated from the office environment.

According to a survey by the recruiting firm Spherion Corp., nearly half of adults age 25 to 29 listen to their personal music devices while working. That's the highest usage rate of any age group. Spherion advises employers to set ground rules, such as asking people to keep the volume low, designating certain areas of the workplace for listening, and developing polices for downloading music and other files on company computers.

Just the sight of iPods can rattle some managers. "Seeing our young workers listening to iPods while they're writing drives me nuts," says Kate Cronin, managing director of the New York City office of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. "I would find it too distracting myself, but I have to say that their work is usually quite good even when they write a press release with an iPod connected to their ears. I have to assume that they're simply able to multitask in a way that I can't."

As with everything, there's a happy medium for multitasking and technology. Millennials need to slow down and unplug from time to time. They need to take a break from technology to relax, reflect, read, and interact with real people, not just the virtual world. Even fans of multitasking advise moderation. Matthew Schuyler, the human resources chief at Capital One, smiles when he sees young employees whip out their laptops and BlackBerries while they're waiting in line to pay for their lunches at the company cafeteria. "Multitasking means more productivity, but we have to be careful not to burn people out, to make sure they take downtime," he says. "We include in our corporate training some discussion of taking time out for weekends or vacations. BlackBerries are called CrackBerries for a reason, you know."