Does anyone else have this problem too?

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Is it hard for you to listen and do your thing at the same time?

It is hard for me to listen and do internet at the same time. When I am concentrating like doing my own thing or concentrating what I am doing and really focused, I zone out what people are saying because I don't remember what they are saying and I have a poor memory of what they told me.

Like today my parents were visiting me and I was on my computer and my mother was talking to me and I was busy with chatting and reading and I zoned her out not really listening to her.

When I am in my own world, I don't really listen to people around me, even when they are talking to me. I thought this was everybody but my mother said this was just me. I thought it was a human thing, not a condition thing. Do NTs experiance this too?

Yes, I'm the same way, but I don't know if it has anything to do with AS or APD. I know that not everyone is like that.

I don't have this problem.

Tim

Yep. I hate it when people try to talk to me when I'm in the middle of something, because I'm so absorbed in what I'm doing that I don't hear what they're saying.

I used to wonder why I would gey so irritated when TM would ask me something while I was on the internet. I'd have to stop thinking about what I was reading, and answer, or go find out what she wanted. I'd get exasperated.
Now I know it just seems to be an "ASpie thing."

Yes, I can't do both things. I have to completely stop watching
tv, working on the computer, watch tv, or listen to music, etc.,
in order to have a conversation. I can't do both at the same time.

Yeah, I have this problem and for as much as I can remember, always have.

Sometimes when I'm on the internet or listening to music, I just want to say "leave me the f**k alone!".

Yes, this happens to me too. Apparently, I sometimes nod when I'm in one of my "computer trances," and whoever is talking at me thinks I'm agreeing to something. When I fail to complete whatever I've "agreed" to, they get pretty mad at me.

It's really hard to pull my concentration from something when I'm really invested or engrossed in it, especially when it's a computer or reading activity.

I'm not entirely sure whether this is just an AS thing, though. I'm sure it could happen to NTs, too -- the biggest, stereotypical example that comes to mind is guys watching football. Perhaps the behavior is aspie-ish only when it's very frequent/typical? That, and, at least when I'm super-focused on something, I fail to eat or use the bathroom... it's not just about missing out on conversation for me.

I was just talking to my assistant today about this. She's VERY NT and knows about Asperger's, but is one of those who thinks "oh you just want to be that way". I can usually "two track" listen to one person and read something on the screen or answer an e-mail or an IM on the computer at the same time.

Unless I'm writing. It's one of the reasons I stopped (mostly) trying to write fiction. My wife would not allow me to write without interrupting me. Every time it happened I felt like someone had just dumped in into Lake Michigan in mid-February. From what I've seen written about the subject by published writers, having that kind of reaction seems to be common. I think Heinlein may have said something like 'interrupt a writer and expect to pull back a bloody stump'. The difference is, being at work only consumes part of my attention, being "creative" sends me into a hyperfocus. Maybe that's what's happening when you're on the computer.

I watch my son and nephews on the computer, listening to music, doing their homework, editing a PowerPoint, and carrying on half-a-dozen IM convos, all at the same time, and... I boggle. Never been able to function that way, ever.

My sympathies about the writing thing, AspieDave. I live in a houseful of people who think that if you pick up a piece of printed material and start scanning it with your eyes, you are signaling that you're bored and lonely and in need of conversation.

Ya, i mute the TV when im on here cause i cant even think when hearing that kind of noise, hehe.

Same here. If I try to listen to music and read at the same time, I end up being caught in listening to the music and forgetting what I'm doing.

The same goes for writing. If the song has lyrics, I somehow manage to write the lyrics- and I usually don't realize I'm doing it. In school I managed to turn in plenty of essays only to have my instructor ask me why I had interjected "poetry" in the middle of it.

I don't really have this problem, but both my mother and sister (both NT's) do. It sometimes drives me crazy when I am talking to them and they blatantly aren't listening. But never mind, I just try to remember not to bother talking to them when they are on the internet or something.

Whenever I'm watchuing TV, I don't allow any of my buddies to use speakers but I zone them out anyway when I am on the computer because I am reading and looking. It takes concentration to listen at the same time, but then I can't concentrate what is going on what I'm reading.

My shrink said this happens to everybody but it probably happens to me more so that's why my mother said "That's just you."