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This paper examines undergraduate student use of laptop computers during a lecture-style class that includes substantial problem-solving activities and graphic-based content. The study includes both a self-reported use component collected from student surveys as well as a monitored use component collected via activity monitoring "spyware" installed on student laptops. We categorize multitasking activities into productive (course-related) versus distractive (non course-related) tasks. Quantifiable measures of software multitasking behavior are introduced to measure the frequency of student multitasking, the duration of student multitasking, and the extent to which students engage in distractive versus productive tasks.

Is the discourse about multitasking falling into the fallacy of the excluded middle? Could it be that instead of a stark choice between the frantic pursuit of getting more done in less time at one extreme or demonizing multitasking at the other end of the spectrum that there is an as-yet undocumented literacy in the relatively unexplored middle, a partially mental and partially technical skill at deploying the appropriate attentional style with the appropriate media at the appropriate time?

"If there is one general rule about the limitations of the human mind, it is that we are terrible at multitasking. The old phrase "united we stand, divided we fall" applies equally well to the mechanisms of attention as it does to a patriotic cause. When devoted to a single task, the brain excels; when several goals splinter its focus, errors become unavoidable."