One could suggest that after each blink, the student’s gaze is reset on something new: the lecturer, the slides projected on the wall, their cell phone, the person twirling their pencil one row up and one seat to the left of them, their homework for another class they have laid on their desk, a different tab on their laptop, or, finally, the note taking document they have opened on their computer. Multi-tasking is as much performing various actions as it is transitioning one’s focus from one task to another. Notice how I said transition, rather than refocusing – something to be elaborated on.
Understanding multitasking
Like many words in the English language, multitasking can have multiple definitions based on each person’s interpretation. Is multitasking the complete focus on two or more tasks? Is it a split but constant focus on two or more tasks? Or is it the complete focus on one task and quick transition to another task?
We can only direct our attention to one thing at a time. Although many things may be going on around us – intentionally placed there or not – we do not have the cognitive ability to focus on more than one task. According to Jon Hamilton with NPR, we’re all unitaskers.
If you are writing and listening to music, you may be filtering out the music while you write, but you’re not actually listening to the music and writing simultaneously. The institutionalized idea of multitasking – that you can focus on more than one thing at a time, efficiently – is a myth.
When doing two or more things at once, you can only ever be executing one thing at a time. (Executing being defined as “to perform or do.” Furthermore, to “perform” is to accomplish a task with a great deal of flair. A crappy written assignment because you were listening to music at the same time isn’t a performance. But singing all the lyrics – while you were writing – is.)
In the argument of whether multitasking entails transitions or the complete need to refocus to different tasks is a valid one. First, let’s look at the latter.
If you were to listen to an exciting story on NPR, but then the phone rings, you must refocus your attention solely because the interaction requires different cognitive processes to fulfill. Your brain must shift what sensors are being used and how it processes the data of a phone conversation.
It’s one thing to listen to a story, but another to handle a conversation. This entails re-focusing which requires a sufficient amount of cognitive energy, resulting in underperformance of the task being switched to. Much like there are transaction costs, there are also transition costs.
In essence, yes, in some cases, we must re-focus, but re-focusing is part of the transition and not a separate action.
The keyword here is “transitioning,” which implies a fluid motion, a smooth shift. Whether this can be trained and developed is another argument. For those who do it poorly, we justify it by saying that they had to re-focus, when really, they didn’t transition effectively.
What the world wants and what school teaches
Interestingly with the speed that technology is growing, so are our brains. What we thought we were capable of in the tech world in 2001, is child’s play when compared to what we can do today. The same goes with our brains, cognitively speaking.
Today’s conventional wisdom notes that multitasking is a valuable talent when competing in the fast lane job market, especially if a position involves digital/online interaction. (What position doesn’t anymore?) Our jobs rely on being plugged in, connected; switching ports every 35 seconds. Why do we teach the opposite?
Not only do we teach the opposite, instructors do their best to prevent self-education and preparation for the real world in their class by calling on their assistant to watch the class and report who is on Facebook during lecture. Some install electronic spyware on students’ computers to monitor their attention. This may actually prevent self-education.
If you agree that teachers can or should manipulate a student through mere observation – playing the “I’m the master, you’re the student role” – look at a study James Kraushaar and David Novak put together. They installed monitoring software on their students’ computers (with their acknowledgment and approval) and when looking at the reports, found that students engaged in multitasking even knowing their actions were being recorded. The same goes for students who are threatened with a lower grade if they are caught on their cell phones – they still do it!
Instead of placing security cameras and bars on students’ internet browsers, why not create a class that leverages students’ desire to multitask? Have students tweet the lecture, getting them involved. Or give students a chat room to enter during lecture that they can talk to each other about what the teacher is lecturing on. Reward the top tweeter. Forcing the way students learn is a cop-out, a detrimental one, at that. Changing the way teachers teach is hard work. Hard, but worth it.
Those reporting that multitasking is an “epidemic” and “dangerous” to students are the ones advocating for the resetting of how students learn. Well, the traditional ways students learn just don’t work anymore. Instead of forcing kids to learn, change how we teach. This isn’t a chicken and egg situation.
A look at what is being multitasked in school
When multitasking your brain shifts its processing from the hippocampus (responsible for memory) to the straitum (responsible for rote tasks), yes, making it more difficult to learn and recall what you have learned, but who needs to remember what we can Google?
The negative consequences to multitasking don’t always apply when you look at what is being multitasked in school. Take, for example, a student that is studying for a test while listening to music, texting, and watching a movie. This is a terrible way to study, that is, if the test were tomorrow. But, what if you took into consideration that the test was still two weeks away? While studying this way may not result in complete memorization, it will result in a sense of familiarity to the information and that is good enough at the time.
I know students. I have worked, surveyed, and interacted with all ages of students to discover one vital study habit that those despising the act of multitasking overlook. Going back to our example of the student and her test, what if the test was tomorrow? I guarantee that, while the television and music may be on, her phone is on silent and she is filtering out the distractions. I have discovered that students can assess the degree of focus that they need to have to complete an assignment at a level of their own acceptance (as opposed to the teacher).
Beyond multitasking, students are catching on to Pareto’s principle – that 80 percent of their best work is produced in 20 percent of the time available. The end all be all of those multitasking is that, well, they basically get the same grade at the end of the year whether they multitask or not. The real perk is the social capital that is acquired because they multitasked.
However, there are still those that will argue that. For instance, cognitive scientist David Meyer said, “What [students] get out of their study might be less deep. The belief [among teens] is that they’re getting good at this and that they’re much better than the older generation at it and that there’s no cost to their efficiency.”
Seven years ago, this was true. Teenagers had just begun multitasking without knowing how to control it, assess situations that require focus, or understand the consequences (transition costs) of multitasking.
Now if you were to ask students if they thought they could do the same quality work multitasking as they would not multitasking, very few would agree with it.
Mentioned earlier, with the sophisticated technology emerging, our own brains are growing, evolving, and developing at an extremely fast pace. Instead of pulling from research done more than two years ago, I suggest researchers resurvey and retest students multitasking abilities now. They will discover that multitasking is a controlled factor with the majority of students and their study habits.
Suggestions have been made that we train ourselves to not look at our phone every 20 seconds, to stay focused, and to take our time on critical thinking. In a world that makes you feel required to do more and more things in a shorter period of time, why would school want to teach the opposite? We should instead teach students to think critically for shorter periods of time and to adapt to the world we live in. If we’re going to spend our energy on anything, let it be on moving forward, not backward.
Information Revolution
1971 polymath economist Herbert A. Simon wrote maybe the most summarizing depiction of our digital neoteric conflict: “What information consumes is rather obvious: It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”
When multitasking (or being distracted), our brains process and store information differently than if we were to focus on the task at hand. This leads to memory interruption.
After sharing a piece of entertaining information with my coworkers, I tried remembering the article that I read it from. Alas, I could not recall what article it was. My inability to recall is not the fault of my memory, but of the input process leading to it becoming part of my memory. I was likely listening to music, reading two other articles, texting, and tweeting ideas while reading the article, resulting in a chopped up version of the memory.
There are two notes to make from this experience and the information revolution.
The first is obvious; I recalled the point of the article very clearly. That – not the source – is what is the truly important part, right? When writing, yes, sources are vital. But when people, especially students, are reading or sharing information, we can forget altogether that someone actually thought of the idea first. Whether that has positive or negative consequences is an argument made elsewhere.
Secondly, there’s a plethora of information that can be recalled in an instant when necessary. Why memorize the date of the civil war and its key players when you can Google it and have an even thorough (and certain) answer within seconds. If I wanted to, I could have Googled the idea I shared with my coworkers and found the article it was attached to. The unique attribute to searching information online is that you may end up finding more than one source stating the same thing, which, in essence, decreases the importance of the information and leans it toward the concept of “common knowledge.”
At the most basic level, we’re moving through a period of survival of the cognitive fittest. While some believe that our distraction is a “full-blown epidemic—a genitive plague that has the potential to wipe out an entire generation of focused and productive thought,” and if experts are correct in saying that the damage done will take hundreds of years to fix, why fix it? It seems quicker and easier to adjust the rest of the world to account for it.
Lastly, this article wouldn’t be complete without…
Noting that during this article, I replied to two texts, entered the Twitterverse, built a ramp for my coworker’s five year old’s leggo car, went on Facebook to ask my friend about her project on ADHD, changed my playlist on Spotify, listened to music, made an art piece of my name with stickynotes, checked the stats of the NHL playoffs, replied to a work email, brainstormed what to write about on my blog, and emailed a coworker about a Madison Police tweet that failed to acknowledge character limits. (“[…] man has been charged with the sexual ass”) Oh, and this was just in the first 30 minutes I spent writing this article.
This article is a product of multitasking. In a world of Nike inspired demands, is this article the most well written one you will read? You’re the judge. But it is finished, you did read it, and it’s out there for others to read and share. Maybe our attention deficit is changing the world, or maybe the world has changed so much that what it asks of us is to change with it. The paradox is, to do so; it will take a lot of focus.
Stay Positive & How Do You Multitask Better?
Garth E. Beyer
Photo credit
Bonus: Help is everywhere
“Mastering Attention to Transform Experience.” Worth watching.
Read what other students think in the comments section
As for the effect multitasking has on grades, you can find my answer to that in my manifesto on education: Start Schooling Dreams
