Multitasking and Technology

We all go through it, there is too much to do and not enough time to do it. Our days are like this more often than not. I’m a single mother of two young boys; I always find myself picking up someone from one event and taking them to somewhere else. Life is a constant challenge to be one-and-a-half places at once, doing two or three things at once. As I go through my day I find myself doing two or three things at a time, multitasking, as I believe as they refer to it, often with the use of some type of technology I have: my IPod, phone, or mini laptop with me all the time. When I work out, I keep an eye on my crawling infant son, as I use the DVD player and talk to his dad on the IPod. Other times I cook dinner, while helping my other son with his homework, and maybe check an email or two, and look up a recipe…well that about sums up the idea hectic life style for most people. What I’m actually doing is a series of tasks one at a time and switching constantly between them. The problem with serial tasking is that it leads to lower quality and less productivity. The rice came out a little overcooked, I think I might have sent the wrong email to the wrong person, and we’re still working on the homework. If concentrating on one thing at a time, I would have had a better chance to do more tasks correctly.
Technology’s influence on us is greater than ever before; we are ever connected by cell phones, laptops, television. We spend time checking social media and emails on these devices. This is true in adults over thirty who often grew up without these devices as children. The use of technological devices is even more prevalent in the younger generations,
We all go through it, there is too much to do and not enough time to do it. Our days are like this more often than not. I’m a single mother of two young boys; I always find myself picking up someone from one event and taking them to somewhere else. Life is a constant challenge to be one-and-a-half places at once, doing two or three things at once. As I go through my day I find myself doing two or three things at a time, multitasking, as I believe as they refer to it, often with the use of some type of technology I have: my IPod, phone, or mini laptop with me all the time. When I work out, I keep an eye on my crawling infant son, as I use the DVD player and talk to his dad on the IPod. Other times I cook dinner, while helping my other son with his homework, and maybe check an email or two, and look up a recipe…well that about sums up the idea hectic life style for most people. What I’m actually doing is a series of tasks one at a time and switching constantly between them. The problem with serial tasking is that it leads to lower quality and less productivity. The rice came out a little overcooked, I think I might have sent the wrong email to the wrong person, and we’re still working on the homework. If concentrating on one thing at a time, I would have had a better chance to do more tasks correctly. Technology’s influence on us is greater than ever before; we are ever connected by cell phones, laptops, television. We spend time checking social media and emails on these devices. This is true in adults over thirty who often grew up without these devices as children. The use of technological devices is even more prevalent in the younger generations, Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of cognitive psychology at The University of Virginia stated, “The average American between the age of 8 and 18, spends more than 7.5 hours a day using a phone, computer, television or other electronic device” (2010). It is not uncommon to see a teenager texting while watching television and doing a homework assignment at the same time. It is not feasible to think that the homework assignment is getting the full attention necessary to be done to its full potential. What people mistake for multitasking is in fact the switching of tasks back and forth on a constant basis; serial tasking is seemingly found more frequently in the younger generation, the same ones that are given credit for their ability to do the impossible. The brain does not have the cognitive ability to do two tasks at once. The younger generation just for some reason have an ability to switch between the tasks better and remember where they were in that task. The more that technology is intertwined to our lives, the more we find our valuable attention span chipped away at. The most mundane of tasks become more monumental, looking for your keys takes an extra five minutes, because you’re checking your text messages as you look and you keep passing by the keys. To Lord Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure one’s time; it was a mark of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustles, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind” (Rosen, 2008). There is a constant need for external stimulus, and the level must constantly be ratcheted higher. Simple breaks such as waiting for a parent to get ready or a series of television commercials are a pox on our time now. Is this a symptom of something else? ADT is purely a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live” (Rosen, 2008). This simply proves? that over three hundred years of the human race, multitasking was never very productive at all. People just trying to keep themselves busy by doing multiple things at once that they could have done more effectively if they just do it one task at a time and give themselves a little break in between tasks. People with attention deficit trait are not organized as they would seem, run-on they are overloaded with tasks that they are just going crazy in keeping up with all of them at once. Therefore, many organizations have managers and CEOs who have often encountered these dilemmas which often lead them to burnout at work. When thinking of the difference of multitasking and the detriments of doing this rather than just focusing on a single task at hand, and completing that task until it is done as putting it like think of the difference between gas mileage on a highway and in the city. Driving on the highway is akin to doing a singular task at a time, it is more efficient. Your mind is the engine and it gets 25 miles a gallon on the highway when it cruises along unimpeded. Now that same car that is your mind gets only17 miles a gallon in the city, as it is constantly starting and stopping, trying to find a rhythm, operating inefficiently, wasting valuable gas and resources or in this case thoughts and processing. In Technology: Myth of Multitasking. Jim Taylor, a PhD at The University of San Francisco specializing in the psychology of parenting, business and Sport writes “In fact, when you think you're CRUISING along the information highway, you're actually stepping on the gas then hitting the brakes, over and over.” He goes on to add “These findings have demonstrated that when you shift focus from one task to another, that transition is neither fast nor smooth. Instead, there is a lag time during which your brain must yank itself from the initial task and then glom onto the new task. This shift, though it feels instantaneous, takes time. In fact, up to 40 percent more time than single tasking-especially for complex tasks.
So as multitasking is going full speed ahead in our lives, what should we expect our children’s generation to see? According to Schoolatoz.nsw.edu’s website, “Can Kids really do their homework and multi-task?”: * Teenagers might be regularly multi-tasking, but that doesn’t mean they are performing the tasks to the best of their ability. * Research has shown that multi-tasking reduces focus. * Dedicated study time without distractions produces better learning.

* Multi-tasking is an unavoidable part of life, but it’s best if teenagers don’t try to do

it while studying.
The University of Oxford’s Institute for the Future of the Mind did a study on two age groups of people to gauge their ability to cope with multitasking. A group one are the 18-21 years old and the other group was the 35-39 years old. As the study multiple tasks were introduced to the younger generation, the younger age group had a better level of concentration than the older generation in this study. This concluded that brain the shut down if it was asked to multitask. Professor of Neuroscience and author Bill Klemm stated that this may also impact memory and learning. So, how should we teach youngsters to understand the ineffectiveness of multitasking? According to Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, for students to understanding the concept of real multitasking, they should be taught with technology per students’ abilities in each classroom. (Zhu & Kaplan 2014). The following graph demonstrated as their proposal following the taxonomy of educational objectives that was developed by Benjamin Bloom (1956) and later was revised Anderson and Krathwohl (2001):

This graph might be confusing at first glance, but bear with this for a moment; teachers could choose from the above graph and decide from there on how to teach their students. With so many different approaches to t incorporating technology into the classes, the teachers would have their hands full just preparing their lectures every week. How would one teacher supposedly teach students a little bit differently than the last class? The material would have the same concept, but the way the teacher teaches the students would be a little bit different in each class with different technology approach. One could only wonder the success or failure outcome of this method? On the other hand, in an article called “Effects of online multitask on reading comprehension of expository text” in Cyberpsychology found that our everyday lives we are always trying to do more than one thing at once, but the effectiveness of it is questionable (Tran, Carrillo, and Subrahmanyam 2013). Some studies have shown that doing so has a negative effect on our productivity, others show the opposite. The introduction and constant introducing of new technologies in the recent past has only increased our need to do more than one thing at once. One of the main points tried by the authors was the Cognitive Load Theory. "A fundamental assumption of the theory is that working memory has a limited capacity that constrains a learner’s ability to process new information. Cognitive load is defined as any demand on working memory storage and processing of information” this should be paraphrased (Sweller, 1994). Others had tested this theory by asking students to answer an email or an instant message as they performed an academic task. The authors did not feel this was a strenuous enough test on the students. The authors of the article were rebuffed in their findings; none of the three experiments conducted found a direct or even indirect correlation to multitasking and declining academic performance. In all three instances there was no significant or even recognizable drop -off in performance. In fact the authors stated in their discussions, their finding is that the level of task performed effectiveness depending on the difficulty of the tasks. So the study found almost the opposite of the hypotheses offered by the authors before the experiment, the authors offered some reasons for this including a lack of challenge with the tasks offered and the familiarity of the subjects as millennial to being used to do the tasks offered without having to really increase their cognitive load. The authors displaced honest facts in their theory to disprove their original hypothesis. We are constantly bombarded with modern day’s technology devices, and we often feel the urge to keep up with it when ten years ago these problems did not exist. So what are we to do? There are always going to be further encroachments on our time with both analog everyday tasks, and introductions of new technological advances from the digital world. Where do we draw the line? There is not seemingly enough hours in the day to do everything at once. However there are those tasks that are so important that they have to be done correctly. These are the tasks that you set above all and have to shut everything else out, and draw within you to maintain that singular focus needed when something has to be done right. Doing a singular thing at a time puts more focus on the task at hand. Do the series tasking and give you a few seconds to refocus first before approaches to the second task at hand. What are we supposed to do when we always seems to be running around like a chicken without its head daily? I’m going to do all of that now, I’m turning off the phone, no texts, social media, no television, no email, no laptop, and I’m going to sleep when the kids goes to bed.

References Anderson, L. & Krathwohl D. (2001). A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives. New York: Longman Can Kids really do their Homework and Multi-task? (August 14, 2014). Retrieved from http://www.schoolatoz.nsw.edu.au/technology/using-technology/homework-and-multitasking-can-it-be-done
Hallowell, E. (2005). Overloaded Circuits: Why Smart People Underperform. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from http://hbr.org/2005/01/overloaded-circuits-why-smart-people-underperform/ar/1
Rosen, C. (2008). The Myth of Multitasking. The New Atlantics: A Journal of Technology and Society. Retrieved from http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-myth-of- multitasking.
Taylor, J. (2011). The Power of Prime. Psychology Today. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-power-prime/201103/technology-myth- multitasking
Phuoc, T., Carrillo, R., & Subrahmanyam, K. (2013). Effects of online multitasking on reading comprehension of expository text. Cyberpsychology. 7(3), 1-17. doi:10.5817/CP2013-3-2
Willingham, D. ( 2010). Have Technology and Multitasking Rewired How Students Learn? American Educator 34, ( 2),: 23-28. Retrieved from http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/summer2010/Willingham.pdf
Zhu, E., & Kaplan M. (2014). Getting Started With Technology. Center for Research on Learning and Teaching. Retrieved from http://www.crlt.umich.edu/teaching-technology/getting-started