We’re developing into an intellectually lazy and selfish culture thanks to search, 140 characters, and RSS. But are the tools really to blame? Nope. Perhaps the tools are just a manifestation of a culture suffering from T.A.D.D. (technological attention deficit disorder), or perhaps we’re just misusing them. I suppose that’s somewhat of a moot point now; however, how we choose to behave and use the tools (vs. being used by the tools) can still be healthy.

You might be suffer from T.A.D.D. if…

• You only read the titles of blog posts
• You only read the first and last sentence of each paragraph
• You’re incapable of reading anything longer than one page
• You read a research document and you mentally snapshot the graphs, and proceed to use those stats in your next conversation
• You delicious dozens of articles/posts daily, and never review them
• You quote Tweets as facts without checking the associated links
• You find others frequently asking you, “Did you have a chance to read the whole email?”
• You regularly read subject headings of emails, and “forget” to read the rest
• You delete voicemails before listening to them (although…voicemails really are the worst thing on earth)

What are the consequences of T.A.D.D.?

• You misquote things regularly – even though you have no idea you’re doing so
• You rarely get the full picture (on much of anything)
• You overwhelm and immobilize yourself under a mound of data snippets
• You never let your brain fully process an idea
• You kill meetings because you didn’t read the whole email, and start a debate about something that was already addressed
• If the author is a client, friend, or coworker you inadvertently tell the author their time isn’t as valuable as yours
• Books hurt your brain, eventually shaping you into one, shallow, person
• You can’t truly tackle, understand, and help bring change to complex problems
• Your ideas will be about as long-term oriented as your information consumption habits
• You become impatient far too easily — mostly with other people

Clean up your blog reader (hopefully I make the cut!), unfollow some people, read a book, read the whole email, pick up a reputable magazine, and stretch your brain, show some discipline, show others you care by not asking questions that were already addressed, and truly learn about a small handful of meaningful topics vs. frantically learning a little about a lot.

If you’re wondering how the internet really is affecting culture, check out the Pew Internet & American Life Project.