Imagine this: You're working on a school paper on your laptop. Your screen is full of open programs, including documents, Web pages and MSN chat. Suddenly, a friend sends you a link to a video and demands that you watch it. He says it's about cats, it's funny and you're going to love it. But you can't help thinking, "I don't have time for this right now." You start to feel even more stressed out than you already did about your paper. While you don't want to disappoint your friend, you need to keep working. This is a common dilemma in an age of multitasking. I often find that my focus is so easily distracted that when I need to work I become quite annoyed in response to these types of links. At the same time, when they're from good friends, I can't just ignore them. Usually, I say something like "Cool, I'll look at it later." But this often disappoints the other person, _ Other times, I'll just say "OK", wait a while and then send a second message saying "That was great!" While this approach is simpler that ignoring the other person, it seems ridiculous to life to avoid making a social faux pas . The problem is that new technologies offer a good many new possibilities, both positive and negative. On the one hand, the Internet connects you to millions of people whom you can make friends with and learn from. On the other hand, it offers just as many ways to waste time. When you're signed on to MSN chat, the other person can't see that you have three papers to finish before the end of the week---so you better believe they're going to send you a video of monkeys dancing to music. Online chat is convenient, but the advantage of face-to-face communication is that you can see exactly what other people are doing. If they are really good friends, you should feel blessed to give them your full attention without worrying about what's going on in that other window or program. Compared with online chat, face-to-face communication allows people   _  .
to communicate with each other more conveniently to watch a video of a monkey dancing to music to better understand what other people are working on to hide something secret from other people