Human beings have always had a capacity to attend to several things at once. Mothers have done it since the hunter-gatherer era -- picking berries while suckling an infant, stirring the pot with one eye on the toddler.

Nor is electronic multitasking entirely new: We've been driving while listening to car radios since they became popular in the 1930s.

But there is no doubt that the phenomenon has reached a kind of warp speed in the era of Web-enabled computers, when it has become routine to conduct six IM conversations, watch American Idol on TV and Google the names of last season's finalists all at once.

But what's the impact of this media consumption? And how are these multitasking devices changing how kids learn, reason and interact with one another?

Social scientists and educators are just beginning to tackle these questions, but the researchers already have some strong opinions.