Oh, How Easy The Youth Of Today Have It

What fun to read Transmogriflaw's tale of the IM bailout of some poor law student who was blearily stumbling along trying to answer a grumpy professor's Socratic inquisition.

When I was a law student, we didn't have wifi in the classes. I had to rely only on my wits -- and the notes my seatmates could slip into my field of view when I was paralyzed and stammering. We had to pass the time doodling frying pans in the corner of my notes when people said things so dumb that you wanted to clong them over the head with a frying pan, couldn't check our emails or blog or chat with the fella across the room about what the professor was saying.

Linda Stone spoke a couple of years ago at Pop!Tech about the phenomenon of "continuous partial attention" as the most interesting trend in the way people do computing now. People are using technology to do a lot of things at once, keeping the plates spinning while tending to other matters at the same time. I think it will probably make law students better lawyers to be able to call upon friends and keep an eye on other matters even while dancing for a professor's questions. From what I can see, the best lawyers rarely have (or take?) the opportunity to work solo and uninterrupted, without reference to a wider network.