Today, I took notes on a lecture, researched a project, text messaged a friend and chatted with another friend who lives in England. But this isn't a typical day for me; it's a typical class period. I am a multitasker. I like to think I could tell you every key point my professor made in his lecture and the details of my research, text messages and my conversation with my friend. Multi-tasking is something I consider a strength. And I'm not the only one.
Whether it's sending e-mails while simultaneously talking on the phone, or making dinner while text messaging and watching television, almost everyone multitasks. I can barely have a conversation without someone checking his or her phone out of habit.
A 2009 Stanford University study found that out of 100 students surveyed, heavy multitaskers—people do more than one or two things at a time—performed worse than low multitaskers. The study concluded that heavy multitaskers had poorer performance when they were presented with tests that weighed the student‘s ability to switch between tasks, how well they performed with multiple distractions and how well they focused.
So maybe multi-tasking isn't exactly a sign of strength. People who considered themselves "brilliant" multitaskers actually performed lower than people who didn't.
Tracking Online Use
Over the course of a week, I used an online tracking device to monitor the amount of time I spent online. Here is what I found:
• I spend between one to three hours (with the exceptions of weekends) a day on the Internet, mostly during school hours.
• The majority of my Internet use is for school or work, but usually I'm hopping back and forth between research for schoolwork and looking at blogs, watching shows online or wasting time on Facebook.
• If I continue this same time frame, I'll spend nearly 20 days a year online, and during that time, I'm making my performance levels fall lower and lower.
•To track your Internet use, download a free add-on at http://tinyurl.com/27pxu5g
Hands On
• 39 to 49 percent of 18- to 30-year-olds have sent text messages while driving, which slows their reaction time by 35 percent.
• People younger than 24 send more than two text messages for every call they make.
• The Neilson Company reviewed more than 40,000 phone bills and found that American teenagers send or receive an average of 3,146 messages a month, which translates into more than 10 messages during every hour of the month that they are not sleeping or in school.
• Texting or talking on cell phones while driving (hand held or hands free) is the same as a driver having a blood alcohol concentration at the legal limit of .08 percent.
• Drivers who use hand-held devices are four times more likely than those not talk on the phone to have crashes serious enough to cause injuries.
• Thirty states have enacted laws banning texting behind the wheel. Mississippi's laws restrict text messaging while driving for minors.
Technology by the Numbers
• Searching online activates more brain regions than reading printed words.
• On average, multitaskers spend 11 minutes on a project before switching to another and typically change tasks within a project every three minutes.
• It takes about 15 minutes to return with full attention to a serious mental task after you responded to an e-mail or text message.
source: "Digital Nation," by Public Broadcasting Services
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