Mom is in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and talking to a colleague from work on the cell phone while intermittently checking her Blackberry—she’s also trying to make a decision about what color to paint the den and half-listening to Dad as he grouses about the day’s events.

Upstairs the kids are simultaneously watching TV, instant-messaging friends, downloading music and doing their homework—a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington suggests that kids have increased their media multi-tasking from 16 per cent in 1999 to 26 per cent.

If you feel as if you’re operating in a perpetual state of overdrive—it’s probably because you are. The pre-frontal cortex or executive part of the brain shoulders much of the burden imposed by multi-tasking even as the rest of you pumps out a flood of stress hormones in response—researchers think that the resulting strain of doing many things at once is taking its toll on our minds, our bodies and our social interactions.

“It is not a disorder, but is it sure is a phenomenon. More and more, people do several tasks at once as a means of keeping up, but also as a means of preventing boredom. As long as we have a lot going on we don't get bored. We don't even have to think. That is the down side, when busy-ness comes to replace thought and thoughtfulness,” says Dr. Edward Hallowell (www.drhallowell.com) a psychiatrist based in Sudbury Massachusetts, an ADD expert and bestselling author of several books including CrazyBusy: Overstretched, Overbooked and About to Snap—Strategies for Coping in a World Gone ADD,(available at Amazon.com).

Mounting evidence suggests that multi-tasking, in defiance of expectations, tends to waste and not save time, reduces efficiency, compromises performance and routinely affects personal health.

It can also kill you. A recent report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute suggests that 80 per cent of car crashes occur within three seconds of an episode of driver distraction such as dialing or talking on your cell phone, reading, applying lipstick or text messaging a friend.

“When a person gets too busy, or as I call it, CrazyBusy, he enters what I call F-state: frantic, frenzied, forgetful, feckless, frazzled. He loses creativity, cognitive flexibility, and the capacity to perceive shades of gray. He becomes impatient, peremptory, rude, and abrasive. He also becomes ineffective, not to mention unhappy. And he makes the people around him unhappy too. Furthermore, F-state is bad for a person’s physical health to boot,” says Dr. Hallowell.

Put too many diverse demands on the brain and it tends to balk and shut down—interestingly, when it comes to multi-tasking, not all brains are created equal. Some people are better able to do multiple things at once than others. And certain forms of multi-tasking occur naturally.

Chances are you can peel potatoes and talk to your mother on the phone without suffering either performance anxiety or failure, for example, since both activities are familiar enough to be practically automatic.

What compels our rush to do it all, all at once is up for debate—job competition, acceding to unreasonable societal expectations, a sort of generalized anxiety about winning at the game of life—some experts speculate that every time we mindlessly respond to a digital beep we may be getting some kind of neuro-chemical reward, fostering a form of addiction to the technology that increasingly dominates our relationships.

Ironically, the more we communicate the less we may actually communicate—email, cell phones allowing us to remain virtually connected while fostering a very real disconnect, especially with the immediate world around us.

People once leapt to their feet to turn off the TV when visitors arrived—now it’s customary to cut others off in mid-sentence to answer cell phones or respond to emails. Traveling is a nightmare as everyone is held hostage to loud and prolonged, frequently indiscreet cell phone conversations.

What does it mean for the future that our children are subject to a steady diet of interruption and thought disruption? Is it possible the underpinnings of civility and privacy are being threatened by our refusal to focus?

“It is indeed having a dehumanizing effect, and no one is talking about it. That’s why I wrote this book. It is time to start talking about it and doing something about it. The good news is that this is a problem a person can personally control and regulate somewhat. You can refuse to get so crazybusy that you become rude, boorish, and obnoxious. You can plan your life so that you work creatively rather than frantically. You can build breaks into your day. You can make time for your kids. You can refuse to over-commit. You can make a point of doing what matters most and delegate or decline the rest. You can honor the presence of others by paying attention to them and you can replenish your ability to do this by not allowing too many people or commitments into your day or your life. This can be done, if you want to do it.”

Tune In and Tune Out:

Dr. Hallowell recommends talking to yourself about the power you possess to make change in your life and the lives of those around you:

• Realize that you do have more control than you may believe.
• You do not have to go to your email the minute you get to work.
• You can turn off your cell phone during lunch and dinner.
• You can give the person with whom you are speaking your full and undivided attention.
• You can give yourself doses of private time wherein you have time to think.