We (the teachers in our school district) keep hearing that "kids are so good at multitasking." I just don't believe it - I refuse to give in to the idea that 1 person's brain can do all kinds of things at one time! How can you listen - truly listen to music and read at the same time? And NPR posted an article "Think You're Multitasking?" article and podcast today. According to the article we use our frontal cortex to switch quickly between 2 or 3 different things. Now, I do believe this one!
Every year I put up the pict of the liar man face (very similar to the old and young woman picture)and ask students what they see. Some say the man; some say "liar." I often wonder what it means if they see the liar first?! But you can't see both at the exact same moment. Then we talk about how you can't hold 2 ideas (of any kind) to be true at the same exact moment. They have a tough time seeing that though either. We must switch our brain to see one and then the other.
Our students are trained to switch their focus quickly. Even as I type this I have 2 windows open and 4 tabs in explorer! I started this blog posting about 20 minutes ago and added a facebook friend. One of my goals is to ask my students to focus on an assignment (read and study) during class. Some really struggle with a quiet room.
Are you really multitasking?
3 comments:
Interesting. I have noticed that my tolerance for multiple distractions is much lower than the Gen-Y'ers. I don't like it when there is more than one scroll bar on the TV, for example. At a certain point, when my brain is trying to switch rapidly between too many focuses (phone, computer, television, children, husband, music), it just begins to hurt!
Thanks for the article. It was interesting and enlightening. A lot of it hit home as I have tried to read e-mails and talk on the phone at the same time. I always have to ask the caller to repeat themselves. It is probably the same as talking on a cell phone and reading road signs while driving.
A related thought: I don't know if you have heard of "brain age"? It is this game in which it is supposed to test how fast your brain can do the tasks. One task is to read colors i.e. the word green when the word is actually printed in red ink. Often times you will get tripped up and actually say red. It records the time and gives an "age". With practice, you can actually get better at it. If we practice can we get quicker and more efficient at switching tasks?
Becky- I came across your blog one day while I was "multitasking". You and Pete have a beautiful family! Reading your blog is fun--I hope this doesn't seem to stalker like...it's fun to catch up with old friends. I'll try to catch you on facebook! Jeanne Nicholas Ambroz
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