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Essays on multitasking and its effects
Essays on multitasking and its effects
Positive effects of multitasking
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In this modern era, it has become commonplace to try and accomplish as many tasks as possible as quickly as possible in order to be more efficient. With the help of technology, many believe that multitasking is becoming a required and helpful skill. Multitasking is actually a detrimental habit. Multitasking divides a person's concentration in order to attempt to complete multiple actions. Even though in the end the tasks are all finished, the quality of the finished task and the time required to finish all the tasks makes multitasking very inefficient. In addition, this division of concentration is causing many people to not pay attention. For most, multitasking is a disadvantageous skill that should not be encouraged as a valid method of completing assignments. The majority of people who multitask may think that they are getting a lot of tasks done and gaining tons of information at the same time. However, most multitasking reduces one's ability to retain information and concentrate, it diminishes efficiency, and it creates stress.
Modern technology is making multitasking easier and more common. However, most multitasking is not entirely beneficially. In fact, multitasking has led to many people becoming easily distracted and, therefore, unable to learn from or understand most of the completed tasks. According to one study, people who multitasked frequently are more prone to be sidetracked and, therefore, unable to learn certain skills properly (Dalton). This constant shifting of attention is literally changing how many people learn and complete actions. Most people who multitask only partially start a task and then reallocate the majority of their concentration onto another assignment without ever really paying att...
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...ld not be encouraged by technology or employers.
Works Cited
Conley, Dalton. "Wired for Distraction: Kids and Social Media - TIME." Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com. Time Magazine, Web. 15 Feb. 2015.
Kenner, Naomi, and Russell Poldrack. "Portrait of a Multitasking Mind." Scientific American (2009). Web. 15 Feb. 2015.
Rosen, Christine. "The Myth of Multitasking." St. Martin's Guide to Writing. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2010. 409-14. Print.
Rubinstein, Joshua S., David E. Meyer, and Jeffrey E. Evans. "Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 27.4 (2001): 763-97. Print.
Weaver, Rheyanne. "How Multitasking Affects Mental Health | Fox News." Foxnews.com. Fox News, 7 Jan. 2012. Web. 15 Feb. 2015.
As human beings, it is becoming more of a second nature to us to multi-task. As the world is technologically advancing more and more every day, there are becoming more distractions. Social-media is flourishing, reality TV show ratings are going up, and humans even unintentionally check their phones every two minutes. In this day of age, multi-tasking is proving to promote inefficiency rather than productivity.
In the chapter “Attention Deficit: The Brain Syndrome of Our Era,” from The New Brain, written by Richard Restak, Restak makes some very good points on his view of multitasking and modern technology. He argues that multitasking is very inefficient and that our modern technology is making our minds weaker. Multitasking and modern technology is causing people to care too much what other people think of them, to not be able to focus on one topic, and to not be able to think for themselves.
David Silverman provided four main reasons why multitasking can be a reliable source for doing many tasks at once. The first reason is multitasking can help a person collect pieces of information faster. Silverman used the example of him getting contact from a customer to make a slide, but wasn't available so his employee started on the slide. After reading his email, Silverman and his employee accomplish the slide within thirty minutes. This example shows how in a certain time a person can collect information quicker from doing another task. The second reason is multitasking can help a person from any distractions or interruptions from doing the tasks
In “The Myth of Multitasking”, Christine Rosen argues that multitasking has become the normal way of doing things for many people and there are many side effects from multitasking. Many people believe that multitasking is a skill, but multitasking is in fact just dangerous. Multitasking has changed today’s society because more people are texting and driving, distracted for longer periods of time, cannot retrieve information, and attention spans are weaker. If more people took their time and paid attention to how they complete a task the first time then things could get done quicker instead of trying to do too many things at one time. In conclusion, multitasking is based on how much a person pays attention while doing a task and in today’s society is it harder for people to pay attention for long periods of time.
Students may easily lose their attention and concentration with easy access to such incredibly rich store of information. With such new technologies as television, internet and social networks, people nowadays tend to multitask more often as they have easy access to a large amount of information. However, such easy access may sometimes be a distraction. Study “Your Brain on Computers” reports that heavy multitaskers perform up to 20% worse on most tests compared to performance of light multitaskers. Working efficiency of people, who multitask, is claimed to be significantly lower. The same is with concentration. (Crovitz 353) As a result, they are not engaged in working process. Students tend to be easily distr...
Due to the nature of this study, two separate, different, experiments were done with two mutually exclusive groups of participants. These experiments were based off of two key hypotheses. The first being that these researchers wanted to replicate a previous study performed on this topic, but in a more controlled manner (Sana, et. al., 2013). The second hypothesis that these researchers desired to test was how the multitasking of a classmate would indirectly affect a student’s learning ability (Sana, et. al., 2013). In their studies the researchers used the manipulation of either using a laptop to strictly take notes or to use the laptop and complete tasks while taking notes as the independent variable. The dependent variable for this study was measuring the student’s comprehension of the lecture material presented.
When living our everyday lives, it is almost impossible to ignore the bings and buzzes of electronic devices. Whether it is used for work or for personal use, social media has become a major part of our lives. In the article “The Myth of Multitasking,” Christine Rosen mentions how electronics seem to be background noise and can be avoided, at first. Yet, this technology will have made its way into people’s daily activities and it can no longer be avoided. Rosen calls this cycle the “electronic din.” Adolescents are now finding that this addiction to technology is to be expected in their everyday life and is seen mostly through social media. The electronic din and use of social media has caused many people to spend hours of their day staring
In the article, “Multitasking Can Make You Lose…Um…Focus,” Alina Tugend centralizes around the negative effects of multitasking. She shows that often with multitasking, people tend to lose focus, lack work quality, have an increase in stress, and in the end she gives a solution to all these problems. Tugend conveys her points by using understandable language, a clear division of subjects, and many reliable sources, making her article cogent.
People live in a society that encourages getting as many things done as quickly as possible. Whether they realize it or not, multitasking as become a part of their everyday lives. They perform multiple tasks at the same time in order to save time. They use multiple electronics to take more in all at once. Multitasking can seem to be the more efficient way to handle things because people can spend the same amount of time on several tasks as opposed to just one. However, they do not stop to think of the amount of effort it takes the multitask and the consequences that can come along with it. Several experiments have been performed to determine just how detrimental multitasking can be. Attempting any form of multitasking
In this day of instant information gratification, information overload is inevitable. On the organizational level, this can lead to decreased productivity due to the constant barrage of interruptions from being continually connected. Gone are the days of being able to focus on one task at a time, and multitasking is the new norm, despite the fact that multitasking greatly decreases productivity. Research indicates that people who multitask not only take longer to complete their tasks, but they also commit more errors (Dean & Webb, 2011). In a 2006 study of how the brain functions during multitasking, it was found that the area of the brain that processes information, bottlenecks the information; thus the brain cannot process information concurrently, causing a delay in being able to complete concurrent tasks. (Asplund, Dux, Ivanoff, & Marois, 2006). Also, information overloa...
Technology has always been improving over the decades, and now it has improved to the point where it’s a part of a human being’s life. People can’t imagine living without technology anymore nowadays, and especially college students who are always on their phones and laptops during lectures. That leads to what is known as multitasking, which is the ability to take care of more than one task at the same time. Multitasking has been popularized by students, and specifically college students, who think that they are actually successful at doing it. Unfortunately, according to Digital Nation: Life on the Virtual Frontier, after testing students who think they are brilliant at multitasking, results showed that they are terrible at every aspect of multitasking; consequently, it is not successful.
Multitasking with non-course material results in a student’s attention being diverted from the course material that is being taught. This can result in errors in memory for the student and also a more difficult time learning the information outside of the classroom (Kraushaar & Novak, 2010, p.1). The University of Vermont completed a study in order to determine the impacts of multitasking with a laptop during a university lecture. Through the experiment they were able to determine that “students with a high [and long] frequency of software multitasking during lectures will exhibit lower academic performance than students with a low [and short] frequency of software multitasking” (Kraushaar & Novak, 2010, p.6). This shows that repeated and lengthy multitasking with technology in particular laptops during lecture times can cause extremely negative results in a students academic performances and
The presence of accumulated stress and heavy work load on the brain automatically bring about the student or the employee inability to multitask; knowing fully well that multitasking is one essential key to excellence.
Multitasking is a poor long-term strategy for learning. People can’t filter out irrelevancy because multitasking has become a habit. A majority of people have the misconception multitasking will help them accomplish tasks in a faster manner, yet it does the complete opposite. Multitasking is not doing a plethora of tasks all at once, but rather switching from one task to another in a continuous cycle. Each time the brain switches task, there is lag time between that adds up. Multitasking distracts people from doing the task before them, so learning and memory becomes spotted and limited, and it doesn’t help that there is technology constantly at people’s fingertips. Multitasking is a poor strategy to to use why trying to complete a job. Multitasking has negative benefits in all aspects of life and is a habit that needs to be broken.
Have you ever thought how much time do you spend using on a computer in a day/week? Computers are as common in numerous households around the world. People from all age groups are learning to operate computers and anyone who has worked with computers for long periods of time knows that computers can be just as addicting as drinking every night of the week. Take further, Computer addiction can have a number of physical, social, and psychological effects on a person, and it is to be taken as seriously as any other addiction that a person is against, but what are those possible effects of spending too much time on the computer, and what are the causes.