- Jan 2018
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It would be hard to enforce a total ban on media multitasking,
Definitely would be too difficult to eliminate it. Better to find a compromise.
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He advises students to take “tech breaks” to satisfy their cravings for electronic communication:
Good solution rather than eliminating it altogether? It can also be worse because students could zone out, waiting for the promised tech break.
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Those who were interrupted more often scored worse on a test of the lecture’s content; more interestingly, those who responded to the experimenters’ texts right away scored significantly worse than those participants who waited to reply until the lecture was over.
Is there a middle ground? Are there students who don't reply and still do poorly? Are there students who reply and still do well?
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who were better able to delay gratification not only achieved higher grades and test scores but were also more likely to succeed in school and their careers.
Is it possible to teach an individual to desire to delay gratification?
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less willpower or motivation
Cause and effect. One problem is leading to another.
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were negatively correlated with college students’ GPAs
Probably because they do not pay attention in class
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Finally, researchers are beginning to demonstrate that media multitasking while learning is negatively associated with students’ grades.
Looking at what this article previously spoke about regarding memory and how knowledge is applied, this is a likely outcome.
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acquisition of knowledge that can be applied less flexibly in new situations
Not necessarily level of learning, but how knowledge is applied
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revealed that different regions of the brain were active under the two conditions
Scientific reason behind why learned material cannot be applied when multitasking.
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extending and extrapolating their new knowledge to novel contexts
By focusing on one task, individuals are able to better apply the knowledge learned from that task to other experiences/situations.
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Fourth, some research has suggested that when we’re distracted, our brains actually process and store information in different, less useful ways.
Store information but not able to apply it?
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in class distract not just themselves but also their peers who see what they’re doing.
Yes, multitasking does not just effect the individual that is multitasking, but also those around them.
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Third, students’ subsequent memory of what they’re working on will be impaired if their attention is divided.
Thoughts will be jumbled with excerpts they read from their actual work and other tasks they were trying to do at the same time.
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alternate between tasks that call for different sets of expressive “rules”
A lot of brain power is demanded because you need to remember certain things for certain tasks.
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Second, the mental fatigue caused by repeatedly dropping and picking up a mental thread leads to more mistakes.
You spend more time re-reading the content you already read.
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First, the assignment takes longer to complete, because of the time spent on distracting activities and because, upon returning to the assignment, the student has to refamiliarize himself with the material.
This makes sense because students are busy doing other things at the same time and forget what they did previously on the assignment when going back to it.
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but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s far better to focus on one task from start to finish
Students know that they are probably not being productive by multitasking, but what is there to stop them from doing so?
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very demanding
There is a proven reason why multitasking doesn't work. Too much is being demanded of the brain.
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“Under most conditions, the brain simply cannot do two complex tasks at the same time. It can happen only when the two tasks are both very simple and when they don’t compete with each other for the same mental resources.
You can multitask, just for simple tasks though.
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That’s a problem, because these operations are actually quite mentally complex, and they draw on the same mental resources—using language, parsing meaning—demanded by schoolwork.
Probably the most common distraction as well.
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second- and third-year law students who had laptops in class were using them for “non-class purposes” more than half the time
Second and third-year students are more comfortable in their surroundings. They know the flow of things and may feel more worn out/tired after two or three years.
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First-year students were far more likely to use their computers for taking notes
Most likely because first-year students are nervous being in a new school, environment, etc. Furthermore, as fresh students, they are excited to be on their new endeavor.
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“students engage in substantial multitasking behavior with their laptops and have non-course-related software applications open and active about 42 percent of the time.”
Students who do this do not just distract themselves, but possibly others around them who see their screens.
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Now that these devices have been admitted into classrooms and study spaces, it has proven difficult to police the line between their approved and illicit uses by students.
Again, technology can be very useful and beneficial. However, the downside is that technology is also very distracting.
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isn’t technology increasingly becoming an intentional part of classroom activities and homework assignments?
Technology can be very beneficial to education, the possibilities are limitless. However, if students are not focused and attentive of their use of technology, it will be detrimental.
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One large survey found that 80 percent of college students admit to texting during class; 15 percent say they send 11 or more texts in a single class period.
College students are expected to be more responsible, but it is their own education that is at stake.
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But when students are doing serious work with their minds, they have to have focus.
Multitasking is perfectly fine when doing things outside of school. It is more important that students focus on important tasks such as schoolwork.
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almost a third of those surveyed said that when they were doing homework, “most of the time” they were also watching TV, texting, listening to music, or using some other medium.
I am surprised the number is not higher!
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is the ability to resist a blinking inbox or a buzzing phone.
How effective is this? If the subjects being tested know that this is what they are being tested on, they will probably be able to resist.
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They understand and remember less, and they have greater difficulty transferring their learning to new contexts.
Because they do not devote all their attention to one task, they complete multiple tasks at once, but not to their best ability.
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their learning is far spottier and shallower than if the work had their full attention.
proven fact yet people will continue to do it
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Attending to multiple streams of information and entertainment while studying, doing homework, or even sitting in class has become common behavior among young people—so common that many of them rarely write a paper or complete a problem set any other way.
very common to be multitasking while doing homework, rare to find a student who can complete their homework without checking devices/stay focused on one thing
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“It really seems that they could not go for 15 minutes without engaging their devices,
students do it so often its almost like second nature, they can't help but feel the urge to check their devices
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responding to arriving texts or checking their Facebook feeds.
having notifications on your laptop/device you are working on or working with your phone near you is very distracting
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study something important
students know it is important, yet they still try to multitask and do not solely focus on the important task at hand
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started declining around the two-minute
do not focus for long after starting
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students were wearing earbuds.
listening to something is also considered multitasking
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reading a book, writing on paper, typing on the computer—and also using email, looking at Facebook, engaging in instant messaging, texting, talking on the phone, watching television, listening to music, surfing the Web.
the students are multitasking and not focusing on one thing when they are supposed to be studying
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marked down once a minute what the students were doing as they studied
test was conducted over 15 minutes, data recorded once a minute
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middle school, high school, and college
students of all ages and education levels, not just one particular group
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