Sarah Sparks wrote an article, “Studies on Multitasking Highlight Value of Self-Control”, on how students claim to multitask on 6 different types of media. Studies have shown that the brain only allows you do to one thing at a time and when you multitask you seem to take longer than if you did a task individually and then do another one. Most teenagers have FOMO, Fear of Missing Out, and they tend to “pay partial continuous attention” which results into them only paying attention to one thing. Researchers have proven we cannot be “two places at once” simply because people can’t cognitively process two things at one time.  When students multitask they have to make a choice and making that choice may cause a bottleneck in the thinking process. Researchers tested students who multitask and students who do one individual task at a time and found that the people who multitask do worse than the individuals. The “marshmallow test”, which used 5 and 6-year-olds to see if they had self-control and to see if they could wait 15 minutes and get a second marshmallow than only getting one but they couldn’t eat that one marshmallow, found that kids who have self-control live better and successful lives. A similar test was done to college students using text messages and researchers found that students who wait to message back get 10% higher test scores. The reader’s attention can be effected when replying to a text message or email because the reader then has to turn their focus on the phone and has to read, understand, and respond to the message while remembering what they read before the interruption. What we consider “multitasking” is not the true definition of multitasking but we can teach our brain to multitask because we live in a connected world.

         Multitasking and “partial continuous attention” are two different things. Computers multitask and humans “pay partial continuous attention”. In my experience, I have paid “partial continuous attention” many times; for example, when your mom calls you and you are playing an online game, you don’t stop playing the game you just answer the phone and agree to what your mother is saying on the other line. Do you ever get off the phone and wonder what you were even talking about? Well, you were “multitasking” because you were busy doing something else that you agreed to everything and answered questions but you focused on the other task that you couldn’t do both at the same time. This backs up Spark’s article because the mind cannot be “two places at once”; we simply have a choose between two tasks. When I play an online video game, Call of Duty, and talk on the phone I find myself playing a game and having a brief pause when my mom asks me a question because I have to understand what she was saying and respond, with a reasonable answer, all while focusing on playing the game and not dying. Another example for “multitasking” can be lecture and note taking, this example can be debated depending on how you take notes. In a lecture class the teacher talks for an hour and 15 minutes and in that time you have to take notes on what you think is important or what you think you have to study for. Note taking may come easily to some but not all because listening to the teacher and taking notes at the same time may be hard because you may fear that you will miss out on something the teacher is saying because you have to focus on writing notes for yourself. In a lecture, I find myself listening to the teacher more because I can’t concentrate on hearing them speak and me finding a way to think of what they said and write it down in a form where I can understand it better. The brain can only focus on one thing which is either going to be on how to take notes and write them down or what the professor is saying and understanding it all, doing both is complex and some students may miss out on important information because they are focus on taking notes. These can be two perfect examples of why the brain can never be “two places at once”.

 

 

 

                                                                                                      Work Cited

Sparks, Sarah D. "Studies on Multitasking Highlight Value of Self-Control." Education Week. N.p., 11 May 2016. Web. 09 Dec. 2016. <http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/16/31multitasking_ep.h31.html?tkn=PTWFGpBwR5o7bKrnCvQZswL8Vr%2BlUoJB%2B62c&cmp=clp-edweek>.