Most office workers these days are berated by instant messages, e-mail, text messages and cell phone calls.

Here's a word of advice your bosses may not want to hear: Don't fight it. Just go with the workflow.

All of those distractions aren't necessarily a bad thing, at least for the latest generation of homo cubicleus. In fact, the multitasking involved may actually improve productivity.

Sound too good to be true? Why don't you take care of that blinking IM in the corner of the screen, then we'll explain.

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THE GAMER GENERATION

Management's adage of keeping your nose to the grindstone is so 20th century. Kids these days are growing up in a much different environment compared to those of their parents or even their older siblings. Simultaneous stimuli constantly compete for their attention, whether it be TV, the Internet, music, video games or social networking.

John C. Beck, author of "The Kids Are Alright: How the Gamer Generation is Changing the Workplace" (Harvard Business School Press), believes that this "gamer generation" operates with increased flexibility and actually thrives on this balancing act.

"Neuropsychology tells us that anytime you switch from task to task, you lose a little bit of efficiency, no question," Beck said. "But what we found is that students today seem to be able move between tasks and retain knowledge between tasks slightly better than students did back in the 1950s. I think that came out of playing games, the multitasking environment kids grow up in."

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SQUEEZE AND RELAX

So how does checking your personal e-mail and buying concert tickets while on the clock play into this new workplace ecology? It basically comes down to being a realist versus an idealist. Your brain, which has been continuously taxed starting at a very young age, acts in fits and spurts. You absorb information from multiple sources all at once, so much that you need to rest it every so often to keep it fresh.

Beck calls it the "squeeze and relax" school of thought.

"If you are in a problem-solving type of job, which workers increasingly are these days, there's an idea in psychology called 'squeeze and relax' — really focus on something, or squeeze, and then completely go away from it for a while, or relax, then come back to it again."

Repeat as necessary. And you may be surprised how much you process during those periods of downtime. That's the benefit of growing up as a multi-tasker.

"It's just the way the brain works," Beck said. "These distractions may actually be helping us, not to be more efficient necessarily, but to be more effective."

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BRING 'EM ON

If your job demands equal amounts effectiveness and efficiency, you can still take advantage of our penchant for distraction. Beck, who often offers insight to employers, thinks companies need to exploit our inner dilettante.

"Stop taking tasks away from people," he said. "Stop trying to make them concentrate on only one task. Because this group of individuals has learned to process difficult tasks in a very different way than previous generations."

Think of it this way: Every additional task on your dayplanner ups the distraction quotient. If our brains are wired to jump from one topic to the next, perhaps that urge to IM could be quelled by another work-related assignment.

"Rather than employees getting distracted by something unimportant, they'll have a hierarchy of tasks that need to get done," Beck said.

But don't forget to check your Gmail every once in a while. Consider it an auxiliary measure.

"The brain is going to turn off," Beck said. "Particularly when you hit a minor wall on your task, because that's the only way your brain is going to solve the problem."

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OTIS HART is an asap reporter in New York. He spent two hours today gawking at the new Apple iPhone.

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